Rav Reuven shlita - Teshuvah Catalysts, Five Rs to Tame the Animal Within

R. Reuven "Parsha Noah: Is Evil Within Or Acquired?" Shiur

Neither post nor transcript have been reviewed by R. Yaron Reuven shlita

Briefing

Rav Reuven's shiur highlights that the journey of teshuva is often initiated by a "wake-up call," a catalyst that jolts us from spiritual slumber and prompts us to turn back to G'd. These catalysts can range from gentle nudges to dramatic life-altering events, reflecting different levels of receptiveness to the divine message and varying degrees of urgency.

1. The Inner Light: Recognizing G'd's Beneficence:

This is the highest level of awakening, where an individual possesses an innate awareness of G'd's goodness and inherent desire to bestow blessings. This awareness fuels a natural inclination towards serving G'd and fulfilling His will, making teshuva a proactive expression of love and gratitude rather than a reaction to sin or suffering. This aligns with Rav Reuven's description of the ideal path, where one recognizes the abundance of blessings in their life and chooses to reciprocate with devotion. This individual sees the "animal within" not as an enemy but as a potential energy source to be harnessed for good.

2. The Illuminated Mind: Intellectual Understanding of Torah:

Through Torah study and contemplation, an individual can gain a deeper understanding of G'd's wisdom and the purpose of His commandments. This intellectual awakening can lead to teshuva as one recognizes the logic and beauty of a Torah-guided life. Rav Reuven emphasizes the importance of learning Torah and applying its teachings to all aspects of our lives. This intellectual pursuit can weaken the "animal within" by providing a framework for understanding and managing our desires.

3. The Prophetic Call: Rebuke from a Righteous Leader:

A powerful rebuke from a prophet, rabbi, or other spiritual leader can serve as a potent wake-up call. This external voice can pierce through complacency and denial, forcing an individual to confront their shortcomings and begin the teshuva process. Rav Reuven highlights the importance of listening to G'd's messengers in every generation, recognizing that their words can carry the weight of divine authority. This rebuke can be the shock needed to begin taming the "animal within."

4. The Mirror of Others: Witnessing the Suffering of Others:

Observing the negative consequences of sin in the lives of others can be a powerful deterrent and motivation for teshuva. This wake-up call is driven by empathy, fear, and a desire to avoid similar suffering. Rav Reuven's example of someone watching "Hashem Took Back His Millions" illustrates this point, showing how witnessing another's downfall can trigger self-reflection and a desire for change. Seeing the "animal within" unleashed in others can motivate us to control our own.

5. The Crucible of Pain: Personal Suffering and Misfortune:

Experiencing personal hardship, loss, or illness can be a profound wake-up call. This crucible of pain can shatter our illusions of control and force us to confront our vulnerability and our need for G'd. While not explicitly described as a level, it's implied in Rav Reuven's discussion of G'd's punishment and the potential for suffering to motivate teshuva. This personal crisis can be a turning point, prompting us to re-evaluate our priorities and seek a deeper connection with the divine. Suffering can starve the "animal within" of its power, forcing us to look beyond immediate gratification.

6. The Shadow of Mortality: Fear of Death and Judgment:

The awareness of our own mortality and the impending divine judgment can serve as a powerful motivator for teshuva. This wake-up call is driven by a fear of the ultimate consequences of our actions in the afterlife, prompting us to take stock of our lives and make amends while we still can. While not explicitly discussed in this particular shiur, it's a common theme in Jewish teachings on teshuva. The fear of final judgment can motivate us to control the "animal within" before it's too late.

7. The Divine Hand: Miracles and Direct Intervention:

In some cases, G'd may intervene directly through miracles or extraordinary events to awaken an individual to their need for teshuva. This can be the most dramatic and transformative type of wake-up call, often leading to a profound and immediate change in perspective and behavior. This direct experience of the divine can instantly tame the "animal within" and ignite the divine spark.

The Animal Within: Nature of the Behema

This "animal" represents our base desires, primal instincts, and the pull towards instant gratification, often leading to behaviors that distance us from G'd and our higher selves. This "animal within" manifests in various ways, mirroring the sins of Noah's generation:

• Idolatry: Chasing false gods, whether they be material possessions, fame, or power, reflects a misplaced devotion and a disconnect from the true source of meaning.
• Immorality: Engaging in behaviors like adultery and wasting seed demonstrates a lack of self-control and a disregard for the sanctity of relationships and the divine spark within.
• Violence (Chamas): Acts of aggression, theft, and exploitation reveal a disregard for the well-being of others and a prioritization of selfish desires.
• Arrogance: An inflated sense of self-importance blinds us to our flaws and prevents us from recognizing our need for G'd and His guidance.

These behaviors share a common thread: they prioritize the immediate gratification of the "animal within" over the long-term well-being of the soul.

Chazal ztl teach the five Rs that tame the animal within.

Practical Teshuva: Stories, Journeys & Practice

Stories

The Donkey's Dilemma (Talmud Bavli, Hullin 7a): This story, featuring Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair and his exceptionally intelligent donkey, highlights the spiritual consequences of even seemingly minor actions. The donkey, accustomed to choosing the optimal route, makes a single error, leading to bitul Torah (wasting time designated for Torah study). The resulting punishment—a snake bite—underscores the interconnectedness of the physical and spiritual realms and the importance of intentionality in all our actions. Even animals, in this story, are held accountable for their choices, reminding us that the "animal within" each of us must be guided by wisdom and a commitment to G'd's will. (Lines 212-238)

The Thief and His Mother: This poignant tale of a young boy encouraged to steal, culminating in a act of violence against his own mother as he was been hung for his acts as professional thief, illustrates the devastating consequences of unchecked negative behavior and the crucial role of early intervention. The thief's final words, blaming his mother for not correcting his initial transgression, underscore the responsibility we have to guide others, especially children, towards the path of teshuva. This story serves as a stark reminder of the potential for the "animal within" to escalate if not addressed, and the ripple effect our actions can have on future generations. (Lines 287-299)

Hashem Took Back His Millions: This contemporary anecdote, though not recounted in detail, serves as a cautionary tale. It depicts an individual who achieved worldly success but ultimately suffered greatly due to their disregard for G'd's laws. Rav Reuven uses this story to illustrate the point that material wealth and worldly achievements are fleeting and ultimately meaningless without a strong spiritual foundation. It serves as a wake-up call for those who might be tempted to prioritize the "animal within's" desire for instant gratification over the long-term well-being of their soul. (Lines 479-494)

The Uman Experience: The story of the young man who went to Uman seeking spiritual elevation but returned in a state of mental instability after being exposed to drugs and negative influences highlights the importance of choosing our environment wisely. Rav Reuven uses this example to warn against the dangers of blindly following charismatic figures or seeking spiritual experiences in places where the "animal within" is given free rein. True spiritual growth, he suggests, requires discernment, self-awareness, and a commitment to environments that support our connection with G'd. (Lines 299-303)

The Sister's Slap: This anecdote, about a woman who is reported to the authorities for disciplining her child with a slap, underscores the clash between societal norms and traditional values. Rav Reuven uses this story to illustrate the point that sometimes, what seems harsh or unkind in the short term can actually be an act of love and guidance, helping to tame the "animal within" and instill discipline. He implies that the "politically correct" approach may sometimes inadvertently enable negative behavior and hinder true growth. (Lines 268-280)s.

Journeys

For the baal teshuva (newly religious), it's a dramatic homecoming, a stepping into a world previously unknown (Lines 706-721). Imagine the disorientation, the excitement, and the challenges of learning a new language and culture. Rav Reuven acknowledges these struggles—navigating unfamiliar practices, overcoming ingrained habits, and potentially facing resistance from loved ones (Lines 706-721). He offers practical guidance: find your community, seek a mentor, and if needed, distance yourself from negativity that fuels the "animal within" (Lines 706-721).

The observant Jew, already familiar with the terrain, experiences teshuva as an ongoing refinement, a constant polishing of the soul (Lines 381-402). Their "animal" might be more subtle—a fleeting moment of anger, a lapse in concentration during prayer, a missed opportunity for kindness. Rav Reuven stresses the transformative power of consistent Torah study, not just as an intellectual exercise, but as a way to refine one's character and tame the inner beast (Lines 460-464, 739-842). He reminds us that true connection with G'd comes from prioritizing His commandments, fulfilling our obligations rather than chasing elective acts of piety (Lines 555-621).

For the less observant Jew, teshuva is a rekindling, a rediscovering of the embers of faith (Lines 415-428). A life event, a personal struggle, or a quiet yearning for something more can ignite this process. Rav Reuven encourages them to explore the richness of Jewish tradition, to find inspiration in the countless stories of return, and to remember that G'd's presence is constant, even in moments of distance (Lines 429-455, 456-478). He offers practical tools, like gratitude journaling and reflecting on past miracles, to nourish the soul and quiet the noise of the "animal within" (Lines 429-455).

Even the Noahide, the non-Jew seeking righteousness, has a path of teshuva. Their journey centers on upholding the Seven Noahide Laws, universal ethical principles that resonate with G'd's will for all humanity (Lines 622-641). Rav Reuven clarifies that while not bound by Jewish rituals, their ethical commitment to the Noahide Laws is a powerful form of teshuva, a way to connect with the divine (Lines 533-538, 983-987).

Transform

Rav Reuven, drawing from classic sources like Sha'arei Teshuva (Gates of Repentance, Lines 329-343) and Chovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart, 344-380), emphasizes that true teshuva involves a transformation both within and without. He describes the inner work as a three-pronged process.

First, we must recognize our sins. This recognition often arises from honest self-reflection, sometimes triggered by a sharp rebuke from a mentor, a painful personal experience, or even witnessing the struggles and suffering of others (Lines 456-500). Second, genuine remorse (charata) is essential. This isn't simply a fleeting feeling of regret, but a deep, encompassing emotion that includes fear of the consequences of our actions, humility in acknowledging our imperfections, a tangible change in our behavior, allowing ourselves to express remorse through tears and lamentation, and honestly confronting our flaws through self-reproval (Lines 344-380). Finally, and perhaps most crucially, we must firmly commit to stopping the sinful behavior (azivat hachet). This decisive action forms the cornerstone upon which all other aspects of teshuva are built (Lines 329-343).

This inner transformation then manifests in outward actions. Confessing our sins (viduy) is a powerful step towards liberation, allowing us to articulate our transgressions and acknowledge our need for forgiveness (Lines 381-402). Furthermore, if our actions have caused harm to others, teshuva demands that we make amends, actively seeking to repair the damage we have caused (Lines 381-402). Finally, Rav Reuven highlights a beautiful reciprocity in the teshuva process: by encouraging and supporting others on their own journeys of return, we strengthen our own resolve and deepen our commitment to change (Lines 381-402). This outward expression of our inner transformation completes the cycle of teshuva, connecting us not only to G'd but also to the broader community of those seeking spiritual growth.

Act

1. Stopping the Sin (Azivat HaChet): The first and most crucial step is to stop the sinful behavior immediately (Lines 329-343). This demonstrates a sincere commitment to change. For example, if struggling with gossip (lashon hara), make a conscious effort to stop speaking negatively about others. This requires vigilance and self-awareness, recognizing the triggers that unleash the "animal within."

2. Remorse and Self-Reproval (Charata): Genuine remorse is not just regret; it's a deep understanding of the impact of our actions and a sincere desire to change (Lines 344-380). Rav Reuven outlines five essential components of charata: fear of retribution (recognizing the consequences of our actions), humility (acknowledging our imperfections), changing our behavior (demonstrating a commitment to change), expressing remorse through tears and lamentation (allowing ourselves to feel the weight of our transgressions), and self-reproval (confronting our flaws and taking responsibility). This might involve setting aside dedicated time for self-reflection, journaling, or seeking guidance from a trusted mentor.

3. Confession (Viduy): Verbalizing our sins, either privately to G'd or publicly if others were involved, is a powerful step in the teshuva process (Lines 381-402). The viduy prayer, recited during various Jewish services, provides a structured framework for confession, but the key is sincerity and a genuine desire for forgiveness.

4. Making Amends: If our actions have harmed others, we have a halachic obligation to make amends (Lines 381-402). This might involve returning stolen property, apologizing sincerely, offering restitution for financial losses, or repairing damaged relationships. The "animal within" often prioritizes self-preservation, but true teshuva requires us to overcome this instinct and prioritize the well-being of others.

5. Changing Behavior and Committing to Future Change (Kabbalah al Ha'atid): Teshuva is not a one-time fix but an ongoing process of growth and refinement (Lines 381-402). This involves identifying the root causes of our negative behaviors and developing strategies to avoid repeating past mistakes. For example, if struggling with anger, we might explore anger management techniques, practice mindfulness, or seek therapy.

6. Helping Others: Rav Reuven highlights the importance of helping others in their teshuva journey, not only as a mitzvah (good deed) but also as a way to strengthen our own resolve (Lines 381-402). This might involve sharing inspiring stories of teshuva, volunteering for a kiruv (outreach) organization, donating to a yeshiva, or simply offering support and encouragement to those struggling with their own "animal within."

The Five Rs to Tame the Animal Within

• Recognition: Acknowledging the presence and influence of the "animal within" is the first step. This requires honest self-reflection and a willingness to confront our flaws.
• Remorse (Charata): Feeling genuine sorrow for our actions and the harm they have caused is essential. This involves not only regret but also a deep understanding of the spiritual consequences of our choices.
• Reorientation (Azivat HaChet): Turning away from sinful behavior and actively choosing a different path is crucial. This requires developing self-discipline and avoiding situations that trigger our animalistic impulses.
• Repair (Viduy and Making Amends): Confessing our sins and making amends for any harm we have caused is a vital part of the process. This demonstrates our commitment to change and our desire to restore broken relationships.
• Refinement (Kabbalah al Ha'atid and Changing Behavior): Committing to future change and actively working to refine our character is an ongoing process. This involves identifying the root causes of our negative behaviors and developing strategies to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Rav Reuven Method: Gratitude Journaling

Rav Reuven presents this method as a powerful tool for overcoming negativity and strengthening one's connection with G'd. He claims it works "every time," but its effectiveness depends on consistent use and sincere effort. Rav Reuven describes his gratitude journaling method in lines 429-455 of the transcript. Here's a breakdown of his method.

1. Two-Sided Approach: Use a physical journal or notebook and divide each page into two sections.

2. Daily Blessings (Side 1): On one side of the page, write down three things you are grateful for each day. He emphasizes that these can be anything, big or small – your family, your health, a new customer, a positive interaction, even something like your car unexpectedly starting after a breakdown. The key is to find three specific things each day and articulate why you are grateful for them.

3. Recorded Miracles (Side 2): On the other side of the page, create a running list of miracles that have happened in your life. These can be major life events or smaller instances of divine providence. Write them down as concisely as possible, focusing on the essence of the miracle. Add to this list whenever a new miracle occurs.

4. Utilizing the Journal for Anxiety and Depression: Whenever you experience feelings of anxiety, depression, or a negative mood swing, Rav Reuven instructs you to stop what you're doing and open your journal.

5. Reviewing Blessings: First, read through the blessings you've listed over the past week, month, or even longer. Relive these positive experiences and allow yourself to feel the gratitude again. This helps shift your perspective and reminds you of the abundance in your life. He suggests this will make you question why you're unhappy when Hashem has given you so much.

6. Reliving Miracles: Next, turn to the other side of the journal and read through the list of miracles. Relive these experiences, remembering how G'd intervened in your life. This reinforces your awareness of G'd's presence and His constant care for you, even in difficult times. He suggests this will help you realize you are not alone in your struggles.

Table of Contents with Transcript References

Introduction and App Promotion: (Lines 1-107)

• AI Rabbi App features and benefits
• Upcoming projects: Orech Din News and Kiruv Store offerings
• Donation campaign and personal phone call offer

Parashat Noach Introduction and the Source of Evil: (Lines 108-211)

• The question of inherent vs. acquired evil (Lines 108-116)
• Context: The sins of mankind and the Zohar's explanation of wicked souls (Lines 117-126)
• Noah's righteousness and fear of G'd (Lines 127-140)
• The unique generation of Noah and the decline after Enoch (Lines 141-151)
• The sins of the generation: Idolatry, immorality, and violence (Lines 152-162)
• Noah's Ark and the gathering of the animals (Lines 163-180)
• The miracle of animal gatherings: Adam, Noah, and Mount Sinai (Lines 181-198)
• Learning from the animals: Reincarnation and Tikkun (Lines 199-238)

The Nature of Evil and the Yetzer Hara: (Lines 239-328)

• G'd's promise to Noah and the evil inclination (Lines 239-247)
• Ramban's explanations of "evil from youth" (Lines 248-262)
• The impact of life experiences on sin (Lines 263-286)
• The influence of early actions on later behavior (Lines 287-303)
• Ramban's alternative interpretation (Lines 304-313)
• The debate surrounding the nature of evil in the Holocaust (Lines 314-328)

The Teshuva Process: (Lines 329-512)

• The first step: Stopping the sin (Lines 329-343)
• Conditions for Teshuva: Remorse (Lines 344-380)
• Five conditions of remorse: Fear of retribution, humility, changing attire, tears and lamentation, self-reproval (Lines 347-373)
• The importance of humility in Teshuva (Lines 351-373)
• Confession and discouraging others from sinning (Lines 381-402)
• Strengthening Teshuva through helping others (Lines 403-414)
• Motivations for Teshuva: Understanding G'd's beneficence (Lines 415-428)
• Practical advice for overcoming anxiety and depression (Lines 429-455)
• Rebuke from prophets, Torah study, and righteous leaders (Lines 456-478)
• Learning from the punishment of others (Lines 479-500)
• The impact of Teshuva on punishment (Lines 501-512)

Q&A Session: (Lines 513-end)

• Wasting seed and its consequences (Lines 513-524)
• Reading Tehillim for repentance (Lines 525-532)
• Neutering pets (Lines 533-538)
• Adam keeping Shabbat (Lines 539-554)
• Organized prayer vs. prayer from the heart (Lines 555-621)
• Circumcision in Jewish and Christian law (Lines 622-641)
• Wasting seed for non-Jews (Lines 642-671)
• Chumash recommendations (Lines 672-679)
• Does G'd have regrets? (Lines 680-705)
• Dealing with family pressure to sin (Lines 706-721)
• Age of Isaac at the Akeida (Lines 722-726)
• Killing endangered animals (Lines 727-731)
• Donating to speak with the Rabbi (Lines 732-738)
• The Gemara's style of writing (Lines 739-842)
• The greatness of past generations and Torah scholars (Lines 843-922)
• Cremation and the soul (Lines 923-929)
• The decline of spiritual capabilities (Lines 930-961)
• Converting and past Shabbat violations (Lines 962-965)
• Depictions of the Bet Hamikdash (Lines 966-974)
• Why Jews reject Jesus (Lines 975-982)
• Using non-kosher lip balm (Lines 983-987)
• Conclusion and calls to action (Lines 988-end) .

Transcript

Parashat Noach (The Weekly Torah Portion of Noah)

B’ezrat Hashem (With G'd's help)

And they have the units also for the… Geoff, and all the righteous Noahides that supported us in our recent campaign and continue to support us in all the wonderful things that the organization is doing, the messages that I've gotten from you have been absolutely amazing. It's really been a pleasure seeing all the wonderful miracle stories that people have received, seeing direct blessing from their donations. And of course, we encourage you to continue donating and helping us with all the amazing things that the organization is doing.

So just a brief update for everyone. If you haven't signed up and subscribed to the channel, of course, do so. But also to the new app, AI Rabbi, that we have. Literally, I get messages every day from people about how much they love the app, they're using it. Just the other day, someone sent me a message that really hit the mark. He said that just like the siddur (prayer book) app has to be on every phone, the AI Rabbi app has to be on every phone. There's even rabbis using it, there's people learning Gemara (Talmud) using it, there's regular people using it. Simply put, any question that you have, you ask AI Rabbi and it'll give you the answer, and sometimes it'll even give you an answer where you have to ask me, as one of the dear students did this week, where he asked the question, and the app told him, you have to ask a competent rabbi. And B’ezrat Hashem (With G'd's help), we're trying to be competent rabbis. So, sometimes that's the answer, that's the best answer. But the point is that it's certainly an app that is unlike anything else out there. There are other companies or other people that are trying to launch similar types of products, but anyone that tests them out literally notices the difference within 30 seconds, if that much. The data behind all the information behind the answers is simply superior to anything that's available out there, plus, of course, all the other features that we have with the 30 different languages and the ability to use it through WhatsApp. All of that is certainly worth it. And I can tell you, many people that ask me questions every day are starting to get AI Rabbi answers. I tell them, listen, try the AI Rabbi. This is the answer I provided. This is even dependent on the answer that I was going to give you because it provides sources that are from the lectures where I spoke about it or sources from different places that are reliable. So AI Rabbi is certainly something that everyone should, that loves Torah, that wants to learn Torah, should have on their phone, always available to them and it's a small price to pay for such a product and it's also supporting the organization, all the amazing things that we're doing.

Let's see a demonstration. So as you can see AI Rabbi opens up, it's a beautiful appearance, it has 30 different languages that are available to you. So if you want to ask it in Spanish, in Chinese, in Portuguese, whatever you want to do, it's available for you. We'll start off with a simple text question that we want AI Rabbi to answer us. Can you tell me about Rabbi Akiva? So, as you can see, it goes over here and usually after about a minute or less, it's going to give you not just a short answer, it's going to give you a whole story that you could write a book about if you want. And you have an answer of all answers over here. And it keeps going and going and going and going and going. And then, after you see this beautiful answer, not only do you have that, you also have the sources. What are these sources? So you have sources such as… or you can go to perhaps a place that you may be familiar with… so first as a thing first we find out where is this Rabbi Akiva… most people… so it's timestamped to the shiur (lecture). So it doesn't only provide you the shiur, but it gives you the timestamp exactly of where in the shiur I'm speaking about the topic itself and as you can see it provides multiple sources, different shiurim (lectures)… it's the same exact thing as the other app and it's the same exact thing as the other app, only difference is when you have it in the main… you'll also be able to ask specific questions on specific shiurim. So that's one… second thing is the… the big movie Orech Din News is getting closer and closer to the… the big day… we're still working… through some copyright… matters but b’ezrat Hashem (with G'd's help) that will be launched and b’ezrat Hashem (with G'd's help) will be launched in multiple channels in different languages all at the same time. When a person is wicked, goes against the Torah, whatever success they're given in this world, it's certainly not a blessing. Any religious leader who speaks the word of G'd who has more than one suit is a cop-out. I just don't see it that way. It doesn't matter who. If G'd comes, I will not listen to him, because I know better than him. …you're gonna lie to him make him think that he'd be serious about you that nothing else matters… 37% of teenage girls were exposed to unwanted nudity in a week on Instagram… if you're stealing if you're being dishonest you are empowering Amalek (a biblical nation that represents evil)… every single person that's writing people a permission to be in a… every single one… Beyond those rabbis will go to Gehennom (hell)… will never come out. They are part of creating… the next Holocaust… that's coming to America. Everyone will ultimately become… a public spectacle. No less than the horror stories… we've seen in the media. It's all down payment… well for what you did and what you're doing. The world of deep fakes is very, very sinister. When someone asks you, where was G'd during the holocaust, the honest Torah answer is, he did it. Throughout the last 2000 years, sages have been against wigs completely. Only one that benefits out of it is you. Don't make this, no hold. Wait for you to do you out for 3000 years. …so those are a couple of other projects but we'll get to those perhaps maybe other time… Also want to remind you guys to start placing your orders again on the kiruvstore.org… kiruvstore.org for if you want to get the books the USBs for free to distribute in your community… We have the Orachot Vetechuchot (Ways and Laws) sefer (book) by Rabbi Ephraim in Hebrew… has the Where was G'd During the Holocaust, the Gehennom (Hell) based on Chassidut (Jewish mystical thought), the Halachic Teshuva (Repentance according to Jewish Law) for rebuking as well as the Halachic Teshuva (Repentance according to Jewish Law) for cash advance business. So a lot of… and also the… It's only in Hebrew but you know so obviously you have to give it to a Hebrew speaking community but certainly something that many people are giving us amazing feedback so we still have those in the store. We also have the special Sicha (Discourse) book that quite a few people loved and gave us great feedback… some people are telling me they're reading it multiple times already… it's in English and in Hebrew and of course you readily have the USBs and our… we're working on getting some major things added to the store very very soon… lastly there was an offer that I placed on the… you know during the eight hours… not 100% sure that some of you really really liked it's a… you know since we have some… Very big plans, b’ezrat Hashem (with G'd's help), this year to open a place, to do a lot… More apps, more different things that simply the world needs and Am Yisrael (the Jewish people) needs and the Torah needs. We need a lot of funding. We need a lot of help. And we're willing to do things that we haven't done before. And one of them is to free up more of our personal time for conversations on the phone. So anyone that donates in the campaign, the B-H-Y-K, there's a couple of options for larger donations. For the $8,000 and the $17,000 will get an hour or two hours at least of my time as a phone call where you can discuss whatever you want. I could tell you one thing that one person that asked me questions, that's b’ezrat Hashem (with G'd's help), a very fantastic and extraordinary student, told me that he followed my advice on an investment just a few months ago… And then was blessed with… But since we have so many people to help, I can't answer phone calls on a regular basis or pretty much ever. But for these larger donations, we're willing to do it, simply because we are putting everything on the line to make these big projects work, anyone that's willing to really invest with us and is able to help us with it, we're willing to obviously help them as well and whatever it is that they need… so if you can do it and you're willing to and you're interested in doing it by all means… if not no big deal we'll continue doing what we're doing… b’ezrat Hashem (with G'd's help) will provide… so we're going to get started with the… for what she works… it's about Parashat Noach (the Weekly Torah Portion of Noah)… but of course we've discussed Parashat Noach (the Weekly Torah Portion of Noah) many times throughout the years and… you know the details of Parashat Noach (the Weekly Torah Portion of Noah) are endless… so there's certainly going to… was very funny there… there could be some new details about the parasha (Torah portion) itself… that we're going to learn to start off with… but one of the things I really wanted to cover is a question that baffled experts for centuries and that is the question of whether evil is within us or acquired. I remember when I took psychology classes many years ago… and… there's… so… what happened what happened to me… so he was a continuous… of the… the… and… we understand the source it becomes much easier to… how it got there… how this evil even got there… and once we understand the source it becomes much easier to remove it… and tonight we going to learn about the benefits of doing just that… removing that evil from our hearts… removing that evil from our lives… and of course after that you guys can ask some questions… who provide us the answers.

So first and foremost, we have to start off with some context. We start off with Parashat Noach (the Weekly Torah Portion of Noah), everyone knows the story where after a multitude of sins, Hashem (G'd) decides that it is no longer worth it to keep mankind in the world as it was. And these particular souls, Chazal (Our Sages) tell us in the Zohar Hakadosh (The Holy Zohar), were actually created by Adam HaRishon (The First Man)… Who are these souls? After Adam HaRishon (The First Man) sinned by eating from the Etz HaDa’at (Tree of Knowledge), to do teshuva (repentance), he decided to leave his wife for almost 130 years… and of course, the yetzer hara (evil inclination)… they don't take a break for 130 years just because Adam HaRishon (The First Man) decided to leave. They attacked them throughout the night. Every single night. To try to get whatever seed out there. Whatever they can get out there. And in fact, any part of that… that came out of Adam HaRishon (The First Man) created these wicked souls. These are the wicked souls of the Erev Rav (The Mixed Multitude). These are the wicked souls that we still suffer from until this day. And the Gemara (Talmud) tells us that there were so many wicked souls, Hashem (G'd) had to distribute them into every single generation or else every generation would be a generation of Noach (Noah), where you have to destroy the world… so these generations reincarnated and came into the world partly as the wicked people of… the generation of Noach (Noah)… part of them… as the animals… and we'll get to the proof of that too… now who says that Noach (Noah) was different… this was a unique generation… but Noach (Noah) walked in the fear of Hashem (G'd)… that's what the targum Onkelos (an Aramaic translation of the Torah) says… that Noach (Noah) walked with G'd… but of course since G'd is not a physical entity like the idol worshippers believe… Onkelos (the translator) says Noach (Noah) walked in the fear of G'd… meaning that Noach (Noah) did everything he possibly could to always have Hashem (G'd) in his mind… before he decided to go right… before he decided to go left… before he decided to go up… before he decided to go down… before he decided to eat… before he decided to drink… before he decided to pray… Hashem (G'd) was always in his mind… that's what yirat Hashem (fear of G'd) is… that's what fear of G'd is… having G'd… before you make the decisions… not after you make decisions… then you… think about the consequence to your decisions… that's also… that's obviously… I'll say that this generation was a unique generation because after they lost their ultimate teacher before Noach (Noah), which was Chanoch (Enoch). Chanoch (Enoch) was an extraordinary teacher that taught the entire world… he was a king of all of the nations… they made him King… but Chanoch (Enoch) wanted to sanctify himself to such an extent that… instead of teaching everyone every day like he did in the beginning… he lowered it to once a week… and then later on once a month… eventually once a year. And then eventually Hashem (G'd) said, you could just come up here and become an angel because clearly he is not the right fit for the generation anymore. Hashem (G'd) wanted somebody to be the teacher of the generation. And after Chanoch (Enoch) left the world, the world deteriorated drastically. And in fact, the Torah says… what is this… everyone was a… everyone was wasting seed, everyone was committing adultery… and in fact everyone was an idol worshipper… these are the two things that are always connected to the Torah… where the corruption that is upon the earth that the Torah is referring to is specifically two things that caused the biggest damage to a person's life and to the world and to the heavens… not to Hashem (G'd)… but to the person's direct connection and benefit… from whatever sustenance and blessings Hashem (G'd) wants to give to a person is destroyed when they're connected to idolatry… when they're connected to immorality… And the world was full of chamas (violence). He says chamas (violence) is not just stealing money from each other and corruption and business… but also kidnapping… exactly what Hamas did on October 7th, a year ago. I thought that the world of course is in a similar situation today in many aspects and the world is full of chamas (violence)… but in this particular case chamas (violence) is an acronym… with… but in the… and the… the… these types of things… things are what are bringing all of the problems today… the same as what they brought back then… and the Torah tells us that at some point Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed be He) decided enough is enough… it's time to destroy the world… he tells Noach (Noah) to build a teva (ark)… this is not like a boat where the entrance is from the top… rather the entrance was specifically from the side so the water doesn't enter… it's… has three levels… it's the size of one and a half to two football fields depending on how you pasken (rule) that a… is whether it's one… is one and a half foot or two feet, based on different poskim (Jewish legal rulings), so the length of the teva (ark), Noach’s (Noah's) ark, was either 450 feet, or 600. Talking about an enormous, enormous teva (ark), that is unlike anything the world could really grasp, even though there's different replicas today… truly the world cannot grasp it. In fact the preparation that Noach (Noah) had to have took so long not only because Hashem (G'd)… Hashem (G'd) wanted him to get people to do teshuva (repentance)… but also in order to not make too many miracles… Hashem (G'd) wanted to use the natural order of the world… nature… so you have to grow these trees… but the trees had to be enormous… so they have to literally grow for decades upon… centuries upon centuries to… to get to where they were… these were not regular trees… and after a hundred years you have huge trees… of course you needed many of them in order to get this teva (ark) to the size that it had to be.

Now one of the things that is difficult for people to understand, to really get their head around, is the animals. First of all, how did the animals get there? How did the… and the… and… and… and… in order to get on to… and that is one. They did not see him. How did he fit even though it was a huge, huge… still people cannot get their head around… so the simple answer that we've said in previous years is what Chazal (Our Sages) says… that it was obviously a miracle… but one thing that we thought about today is that this was not the only time this happened… first and foremost in the first parasha (Torah portion) of the Torah we see that Hashem (G'd) brings all of the animals miraculously to Adam (Adam) every… so he could name them based on their essence… so each and every animal comes in front of Adam (Adam)… and Adam (Adam) looks into the essence of that animal and says, this is a dove, a bear. This is a sus (horse), a horse. This is a…, an alligator, and so on and so forth. Each one of the animals presented itself in front of Adam HaRishon (The First Man), and Adam HaRishon (The First Man) named it. Second time it happened was with Noach (Noah). Another time was in Har Sinai (Mount Sinai). Where's Har Sinai (Mount Sinai)? Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) had to teach Am Yisrael (the Jewish People) the Torah… and Chazal (Our Sages) tell us that when Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) was teaching Am Yisrael (the Jewish People) the laws of kashrut (kosher dietary laws)… he didn't just tell them listen there is some bird that looks like… it is black and it only comes out at night… don't eat it… no! every single bird… every single cattle… every single type of animal… and Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) lift it and say this is a bat… don't eat it… this is a chicken… eat it… this is a cow… you're allowed to eat it… this is a donkey… no eating… this is a lion… no eating… and so on… and so every animal came and Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) showed Am Yisrael (the Jewish People)… this is the animal… this is food… this is not food… this is food for the Jews, this is food for the rest of the nations if they want. So we see that this whole miracle of all of the animals coming to man, coming to the leader that Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed be He) chose happened more than once. So if you believe in the creation, according to the Torah, then there's no problem with the story of Noach (Noah). And even if you still have a problem with the story of Noach (Noah), you believe in Har Sinai (Mount Sinai). …well how else is Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) going to teach them what a… is… what is, which is a bat… what is a hyena… what is a tiger… how is he going to teach him all that… those things don't live in a desert… and just telling them words is not going to help them… what is he going to give them descriptions… no, he showed them the actual animals… so no less than three times did this type of miracle actually happen… now in fact… taught us that there is a lot to learn from the animals in this parasha (Torah portion)… in fact the first time… says in Bereishit (Genesis) chapter 6 verse 19… says to Noach (Noah)… and from all of the… that lives… from all the flesh you shall bring two of each into the ark to keep alive with you… They shall be male and female… meaning bring the animals… bring male and female… Zachar (male) is male, Nekeva (female) is female. But then when you see several verses up in chapter 7, verse number 2… notice changes… where… he says of every clean animal you shall take for yourself seven pairs… a male with its mate… and of the animal that is not clean… two… a male with its mate. But unlike the first time where it says… which means male and female. Here it says… Ish (man) and his wife. Why not say… I heard this from… who brings the… one of the greatest… in the last several hundred years… and he says this is because the animals that were chosen weren't just ordinary animals… they were animals that required a tikkun (rectification)… for what tikkun (rectification)… for what the man did before he sinned enough to be reincarnated as an animal. Meaning, all of these animals were reincarnations. That's why they said not just male and female, but… ish (man) and isha (woman). Meaning these are people that sinned. What did they sin? …when you act like a behemah (animal)… when you act like an animal… and you're immoral… you have to be reincarnated… and… Chazal (Our Sages) says that from here we also learn that animals also have to act… The animal has a human soul within it that reincarnated as an animal after making specific types of sins… We discussed in previous shiurim (lectures)… especially the last big event we had that talked about the kedusha (holiness) and tikkun habrit (rectification of the covenant)… here in Florida about a year ago… talks about different reincarnations into animals that Chazal (Our Sages) teaches us… What sin causes a person to reincarnate into different animals… and one of the examples the Gemara (Talmud) brings is Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair had an extraordinary donkey… this donkey was so smart… he was better than the… navigation system… how so… when Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair wanted to go somewhere… he just simply tell the donkey… I want to go to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, my son-in-law's house… without navigating the donkey, the donkey would just go, and Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair was able to learn Torah the whole way without worrying about, did he make a right, did he make a left, do you have to reroute? No. But one time, this donkey made a mistake. One mistake? …he picked a route to take Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai… but he picked a route, where on that route, on that road, there was foul smelling things… things that smell terrible… and of course Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair couldn't study Torah anymore because you can't study Torah when it smells bad… you have to stop… and this caused them to waste time… bitul Torah (wasting time that could be used for Torah study)… so… so after… got to the house of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai… they were studying Torah… and all of a sudden he hears the donkey screaming… screaming like someone's torturing it… someone is… someone is… hurting my donkey… quickly they both run outside… and what do they see… they see that there's a snake wrapped around the legs of the donkey and biting it… so Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair says to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai… what is this… why is this happening… and of course… of course Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in this level at this point he's already able to see things that no other person can see… your donkey caused you bitul Torah (wasting time that could be used for Torah study)… didn't he… and he's being punished for it… he caused you to waste time somehow on the way here… oh… it's because you… went to a place you couldn't study Torah… donkey picked the wrong road… so he's getting punished… was donkey responsible for his actions… that the donkey… the donkey that you see in some place today… this donkey had a neshama (soul)… and it's a… of a person in it… Chazal (Our Sages) even talked about how Yishmael (Ishmael) had to be reincarnated as a donkey… that's why Avraham (Abraham) said to him, during the Akedah (Binding of Isaac), he says, you and the donkey stay here. Why? You and the donkey are the same.

See, here we see, that is telling us there's much to learn about the animals in this parasha (Torah portion), but mainly this particular point is what we want to focus on. Why were people and why are people connected to animals? Because they can reincarnate into them. Why would they reincarnate into an animal? Because when you act like an animal, you behave like an animal, when you walk around without clothes, like an animal, where you commit adultery, like an animal, like a dog, doesn't have any loyalty to his wife, like a bull, doesn't have loyalty to his wife, like all types of animals, don't have loyalty to their husband, these types of things are at the very least one of the reasons how a person can express their animalistic side and thereby acquire themselves a horrible punishment of being reincarnated as an animal. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed be He) in essence is trying to tell us you have to remove the animal from within. You have to remove the evil from within. After the mabul (flood), Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed be He) promises Noach (Noah) that he is not going to destroy the world in the same fashion in the future because he knows what he created… for the design of man's heart is evil from its youth. Ki yetzer lev adam ra mi’ne’urav (for the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth). Now the way that we would typically understand this is that yeah each person is born with a yetzer hara (evil inclination)… and therefore… use subject to sin… but that's not enough really of an explanation that satisfies… to say no no there's… as to something more than this… what you tell me just because they ever yetzer hara (evil inclination)… therefore he's not gonna destroy the world… no he's not gonna destroy the world with a mabul (flood), he can still destroy…, but not with a mabul (flood)… so comes the Ramban (Nachmanides) and said there is a few reasons of what this means… first off Hashem (G'd) is speaking in man's defence saying that people are created with an evil nature in their youth but not in their old age… consequently it would not be proper to destroy every living being for these two reasons. Meaning that they're created in such a fashion where their evil inclination causes them to sin more when they're young. With wasting seed, with immorality, with stealing… with arrogance. You know, when you're young, you think you can rule the world. You feel like everybody else is old and you can do everything better than them. But then life humbles you… all decisions that you made you realized they weren't all right… in fact you realize most of them if not all of them were wrong… you realize that the people you thought were against you perhaps actually were trying to help you… the people that you thought were helping you were really stealing from you… were hurting you… the person you trusted the most you realized was the biggest criminal, the person you disassociated with, actually could have saved you. And many times people realize that their life unto that point was just simply one big road of bumps… also known as mistakes. Mistakes in choosing friends, mistakes in choosing in careers, mistakes in business decisions, mistakes in the way that they speak and communicate to people… or miscommunicate to people, mistakes in how they raise their kids. Many times in the world today, people that are politically correct frown upon the previous generation that used to give a kid a smack or two in order to discipline them… those… told… that when his sister came from… from France to Israel… she… you know she's a little modern… and even though she keeps to… what… she also goes to places that religious people should never go to… and one day she took her kid to one of these places… and the kid was misbehaving… so she gave the kid a little slap to get him back into check… not chas v’shalom (G'd forbid) to hurt him… not in a vicious way… obviously there's halachot (Jewish laws) of how to discipline a kid… but the point is sometimes a slap is… is the perfect recipe… is the only recipe… immediately one of these lefty liberal people that was standing next to her… I'm calling the cops… she didn't understand what he's talking about… why… what happened… how dare you… she couldn't understand what he's talking about… how dare you hit the kid… she couldn't understand what he's talking about… where she comes from… which is normal civilization. If the kid doesn't act a certain way, sometimes you have to give him a slap. Not to give him a black eye. Not to break his legs. Not like some of these… psychopaths do. But sometimes that's what's necessary. This was completely out of the vocabulary of the lefty liberals of today… and this guy was literally calling the cops on her… as soon as she realized what was happening there… and what he accusing her… she realized oh, now I understand why you're that way. …it's because your parents didn't slap you when you were a kid. That's why you turned like this. That's why you married him. And he married you. …That's why you're like that. Your parents didn't slap you when they needed to. Like one of the extraordinary stories that… tells. When there was one time a single woman… what they were raising her kid… and they were struggling financially… and the kid one day decided that he wants to help out… so what did he do, decided to go to the market and steal an egg… he brought the egg to his mother, he's like Ima (Mother) look, I got us an egg… we can eat… oh wow great, obviously she knows this little kid doesn't have a job… doesn't have any income coming in… but sometimes when you're poor… you're struggling… you don't ask questions… the kid saw how happy his mom is… the next day he got two eggs… Ima (Mother) look look I got it again look… oh great… wow you're an expert… and before you know it the kid is getting encouraged to steal… and every day he's stealing… A couple of eggs… a couple of eggs, a couple of this, a couple of that, before you know it. Listen. It's hard work stealing every day. Let me make a big robbery. And this kid grows up to be a thief, and one day, he tries to make a big robbery, and he gets caught. In that country, if you get caught stealing, death penalty. They told him, do you have any last requests before we hang you? He said yes… I wanna give my mom a kiss… kiss goodbye… perfectly normal… they bring him his mother… and soon as mom came close to him… he pretended like he was going to give her a kiss goodbye on the cheek… and instead of kissing goodbye… he bit her ear off… blood's everywhere… she screaming… they grab him… and after everything comes down, they… listen, we understand you're a thief, but why are you so vicious? He says, no, no, no, no. Everything that's happening right now is her fault. Everybody at the court, even though they're about to kill this guy, they're interested in what he has to say. Her fault, why her fault? When I first stole the first egg, instead of encouraging me she should have said no… not allowed to steal… and this would have never happened… this real story… is really the issue that the Ramban (Nachmanides) is brings as the second explanation of what an evil heart being from within… where he says listen the fact that there is people… they have an evil inclination… it's true… but on the first circumstance that evil inclination is going to make most of its sins when a person's young… by the time life goes on… he starts realizing he's not as strong as he used to be… he's not as handsome as he used to be… she's not as pretty as she used to be… she's… all the things change… so the sins decrease as a person ages… especially as life slaps you in the face… where instead of your kids celebrating the rest of what's remaining in your life with you… they start looking forward to your death… as unfortunately happens… where several times people have told me where the parents are having the worst possible curse happen to them during their life. What? Their kids are looking forward to their death. Why? The parents have some money and the kids just simply don't want to wait until they die to get the inheritance. So they start fighting over the money. Now they start suing each other. They start threatening the parents. They start sometimes even beating them up. I've heard horrible, horrible… Literally, your ears will fall off if you know the stories that I've dealt with in my life with different people. And unfortunately, this is the outcome of the parents' behavior. The parents raise the kids without discipline, says Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon), you raise them without a discipline, you will eventually hate him and he will eventually hate you. You tell them everything's okay. I love you no matter what. You tell them you're my friend, not my son. You're my friend, not my daughter. Guess what? That kid is going to hate you. You are going to hate that kid. Why? Because you're not being a parent. You're not disciplining the kid. So says the Ramban (Nachmanides), even if the kid is rotten, okay, he's going to be bad in the beginning, but over time the sins will… are going to decrease… sin… you should destroy the world for that… yes… but there's another issue… another issue is says the Ramban (Nachmanides) is within a person from the very beginning of their youth… as the sages have said… it's from the time that the child stirs to leave his mother's womb, the evil inclination is placed within him. Meaning what? Meaning that this kid had the evil inclination and he followed in his way. And the horrible things that he ended up doing later on in his life, even beyond his youth, are only as a result of what he cooked… of the things he did when he was young… the shows he watched… the movies he watched, the filth he watched… the places he went to… some young guy went to Uman a year ago only to come back a crazy person… to be put in… their mental institute… Why? He was going to Uman to show his recommitment to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov… But unfortunately we know that that's not the only thing that's in Uman. People bring drugs. People bring filth. Immorality. And some of his so-called friends gave him some of these drugs. And from the moment he took those drugs he lost his mind. …when he came back to Israel he had to be put into a mental institution… which he's still in until this day… that one second decision to follow who he thought were his friends… to have a good time… to be spiritually elevated… like some of these drug degenerates are promoting today… there's some rabbis or people that pretend to be rabbis… and… that talks about his addiction and his heresy on a regular basis. They're promoting drugs to the… to the religious Jewish public today saying this is going to elevate you and help you overcome any type of spiritual obstacles you have… in so many words… it's going to make you more religious… they're pretending to be people's friends… for a fee, a big fee… in reality one tiny bit could simply cause a person to suffer forever… no, no, but doctors are managing it… so what if doctors are managing it, what doctors don't make mistakes… I'm a living proof of how many mistakes doctors make… How many surgeons do I have because of doctors? Mistakes. How many mistakes they can make. People play with fire and then they have to live with the outcome. Says the Rambam (Maimonides). The evil that's there is not because of… everyone is like that, but rather… he chose to follow the evil… and the evil acquired more evil… and the evil acquired more evil… and the evil acquired more evil… and now you have the byproduct of all of this evil… all of this wickedness… so we shouldn't destroy the whole world just because this guy decided to follow his evil inclination… so we see from here… that evil within is not necessarily so simple… and then says the Ramban (Nachmanides)… but there's others that say that this should be understood as if it was written… in his youth… similar to this usage of… says before a person… before one stone was placed upon another stone in the sanctuary of Hashem (G'd)… where… is equivalent to… he's showing different examples of where you could replace the… And in so many words, the Ramban (Nachmanides) is telling us that this evil is either because, you know, something that happens only when a person is young, or something that happens as a result of a person following the evil and then simply becoming more and more evil as a result of everything… or it's an evil that is unique on each person… so from here we see that yes evil is within… but it's not the same thing everywhere… and that's why the professors and experts that tried to deal with the issues of the Holocaust were baffled… that by the time many of the cases were completed… there was still a debate between them whether these Germans, Nazis were inherently evil… and that they were just simply monsters… or they acquired it. The conclusion after many years of study is that they acquired it. Why? Each one of them had the ability to make different decisions… now once a person knows… okay so there's evil within… that I've acquired as a result of bad decisions… of hanging out with the wrong people… of taking things that don't belong to me… of doing things that are forbidden… of looking at things that… okay fine… well now what… that's it… I'm doomed… I'm gonna be an animal… no… That's the whole point. He does not want to… This is behavior. And the… In Sha’arei Teshuva (Gates of Repentance)… in the fourth… writes a few things that will take into heart about doing teshuva (repentance). This is the first thing that a person needs to do to remove the animal from within… is stop. The moment you realize that what you're doing is against the Torah, stop. Because desisting is a sign that a person has firm faith in reward and punishment… as the prophet Yeshayahu (Isaiah) in chapter 55 verse 7 says… let the wicked person forsake his way and the corrupt individual his thoughts… because the person that persists in his sins is saying the opposite… such as what the prophet also says in chapter 57 verse 17… because of the outrage of their violence I was angry and struck them… hiding in my anger yet they went astray in the way of their hearts. And he says this is not something that's too difficult to understand because you see it in human behavior. In relationships. When one person wrongs another… if they're a normal person… they'll have remorse. And if they want to maintain the relationship… fix the relationship… what will the first thing they're going to do… before… I'm sorry… before rewarding them… stop… stop causing pain… stop wronging the person… and that in itself makes them worthy of forgiveness… and asking for forgiveness is a sign that a person has some connection to humility… wise men Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon) in Mishlei (Proverbs)… it says in chapter 28 verse 13… but he who admits and forsakes his sins will be forgiven… whereas on the other hand if a person does not want to admit their sins… says no I didn't do anything wrong… it's not my fault… I grew up in a certain neighborhood… I grew up in a certain household… it's not me… it's not… this starts blaming the world for their mistakes, says the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) in chapter 2 verse 35, I will bring you to judgment for saying I have not sinned. Or he who conceals his sins will not succeed says Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon). Now, taking the first step of not repeating the sins is a sign that a person recognizes the wrong in their conduct. And the magnitude of their offense. So the first thing to remove the animal from within, stop. Stop whatever you know is wrong. Now what? There are certain conditions that are essential for teshuva (repentance). …having remorse… having remorse for our actions… of course a person has to not go back to the places that cause… and not maintain the relationships with people that wanted to continue sinning… that's in essence building a fence… but having remorse says the Chovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart) is an essential part for teshuva (repentance)… and there are five conditions of remorse… one… the person that's doing teshuva (repentance)… that's repenting… should fear the imminence of the creation's retribution for the sins that he has committed… as a result of this fear his remorse will be as the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) says in chapter 13 verse 16… give glory to Hashem (G'd) your G'd before it turns dark… before your feet stumble on mountains of darkness… meaning fear of punishment will help you feel worse about the sins… meaning remorse… which will make your apology to G'd much more authentic… much more legitimate… but until you understand that you're supposed to… that you did something wrong… you're never gonna feel sorry for it… so somebody told me the other day… they want me to help them overcome a horrible horrible sin that they've been doing for almost their whole life… but they want to know if I could help them overcome it without teaching them about Gehennom (hell) or punishment… maybe there's a nice way to do it… and humbled before G'd on the account of his sins… as the Divrei Hayamim (Chronicles) 2 chapter 7 verse 14 says… my people with whom my name is associated shall humble themselves and turn from their evil ways… three… he should change his attire and finery and exhibit signs of remorse in his speech… eating habits and every motion… as the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) chapter 4 verse 8 says… for this gird you with sackcloth… lament and wall… in so many words… a person that realizes that their life is one big lie… that their violation of Shabbat (Sabbath)… their stealing, their adultery… their… whatever things that they realize are against Hashem (G'd)… it's not enough to just acknowledge… ok I did wrong… and let me just do right… certainly a person has to do right… but you still have to fix what was wrong… in order to fix what was wrong… a person has to humble themselves… this is why it baffles me sometimes when people… they… I don't know why… but they associate with these like speakers or… or… or gurus that show off all this money and all this success… and they just add Hashem (G'd) to their speech some way… say, look, Hashem (G'd) blessed, Hashem (G'd) blessed… and they think, oh yeah, look, I did teshuva (repentance), I'm going and I'm listening to this… to this guru… and that's helping me do teshuva (repentance)… what? Helping you do teshuva (repentance)… you're becoming more arrogant by the day… teshuva (repentance) is humbling yourself… we're not saying that you have to go live in the streets… but to go around pumping fists all day and flexing about how you're better than everybody else… you're G'd's gift to the world… that's not teshuva (repentance)… you haven't humbled yourself… number four… through tears… lamentation and mourning he should express his remorse for his past sins… five… he should reprove and shame himself inwardly for having been deficient in his duty to his creator… maybe exalted… as it says… rend your hearts not your clothes… so here we already see… is telling us that the remorse is humility… is saying I'm sorry… and it's also rebuking yourself for making such a mistake. What is it like if somebody wants to succeed in the corporate world? You have two ways. One, you could be an entrepreneur… take all the risks… of the expenses… of the lawsuits… of the headaches… and perhaps your product… your service may succeed… it may fail… but you can be an entrepreneur… you could start a business… lead it… and if you succeed you're the biggest winner… if you fail you're the biggest loser… because the employees can just get a different job… that's one way of succeeding… second way of succeeding is going up the corporate ladder… how do you go up the corporate ladder… you find a way to get along in order to go along… meaning you have to find a way to make more friends… with your managers… your superiors, your experts, your customers, your, whoever it is, in order for people to like you enough, in order for people to want you to succeed, in order for people to even help you succeed. But if you're constantly going to be firing at everybody else, everybody else is terrible except you, you're not going to get there. …thing is, on TV it looks like everybody that's successful is the most… It's an arrogant person that just tells everybody else they're a loser… and it doesn't really work like that in real life. In real life, you're not going to build anything telling everybody that they're losers. You want to succeed? You have to go and bring other people up with you… and help other people want you to succeed. So this is common sense, where a person that wants to get to a certain point knows they have to do certain things. The same concept with teshuva (repentance). If a person wants to remove the animal from within, of course they have to stop. And two… they have to get to a point where they are disgusted by what they've done… or else they're going to give back to it the next opportunity… so long as you're not disgusted by what you've done… so long as you're not petrified by what you've done… so long as you've not humbled yourself… you still have not gotten to the point where the sin is behind you, it's still always there, you may not be committing it this second, but if the opportunity presents itself, chas v’shalom (G'd forbid), a person can fall.

Now, the Chovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart) wants to give us a few keys to help us get forgiven. …once we are following these steps… he has to confess his sins… he should always remember them… meaning not to go back to… but also one of the things he says… he should strive and endeavor to discourage others from transgressing just like he did… and warn them of the consequences… and encourage them to turn away from it… as the prophet Yonah (Jonah) says in chapter 3 verse 9… he who knows that he has sinned should repent and we will not perish… And David HaMelech (King David)… In your… In your running away from the sin and not repeating it… In your remorse… In your humility… In your forgiveness… you actually have to get other people to do it too. Why? When you remind, tell them that they're making a mistake… the same thing like you did, you're not only telling them… You're reminding yourself. When you're telling yourself, you're feeling, you're realizing that you made a mistake. You're feeling remorse. You then plead to Hashem (G'd) to forgive you. In fact, this type of behavior strengthens your teshuva (repentance) more and more as you try more and more to help other people. Now, some people are very good at speaking to others. Some people should never speak to other people. So how can they help other people do teshuva (repentance)? Simple. They can donate and help us do the job. And they'll get the same exact if not even better results… where the lectures, the books, the USBs, the apps,… all the different things that we produce every single day are helping thousands and thousands of people abandon idolatry, abandon heresy, abandon immorality. Do teshuva (repentance). Get closer to… if you are one of the people that supported the organization. …guess what… it goes to your account… so you're in the… now fuels this new strength that you never knew before… where did it come from… it came from the money… it came from the donation… but if a person thinks… no listen… I'll… I walk around with a $30,000 watch… $150,000 car… and a million dollar house… house… and I'll donate a thousand dollars a year to kiruv (Jewish outreach)… you're not going to get that much spiritual help… why… because you didn't prioritize… you prioritize this world much more than you priority is in the eternal world… now the Chovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart) then puts things into perspective… perspective… and he says what causes people to do teshuva (repentance)? What causes people to finally decide it's time to remove the wicked evil from within… to remove the animal from within? One… it may be on the account of a person's profound understanding of G'd… and his contemplation of G'd's continual beneficence towards him… and of his corresponding obligation to serve him, observe his commandments and abstain from what he prohibited. Where the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) says, If you repent Israel, says G'd, you will be restored to me. Meaning if you repent of your own free will before you are hit with punishment, I will accept your repentance and embrace you in my service. If you remove your detestable things from my presence and do not wander, meaning do not flee from my service, if you swear by my name truthfully, justly and sincerely, meaning you genuinely wish to… to return to me, nations will bless themselves by you and in you will they glory. In so many words, there could be a person that wakes up one day and realize how amazing Hashem (G'd) is. Look what He gave me. He gave me a wife. He gave me kids. He gave me a house. He gave me a car. He gave me this. He gave me health. You gave me, You only give me. Look how beautiful the world is. Hashem (G'd) could have created everything gray, everything black. But look, everything has colors. Hashem (G'd) could have created only one bird. But He created all these beautiful birds… and all these beautiful flowers… and these beautiful different types of weathers… and everything is… and all these amazing things are in such a beautiful world… with so many amazing blessings… literally when a person starts seeing all the blessings they have in their life… depression runs away from them… that's what I always tell people… people that have anxiety or depression… best thing to do is… advice that's… what's… I've given this to people… it works every time… only if you do it… if you don't do it then it doesn't work… it's like having a cure for all diseases… but it stays on the shelf. It's not going to work. What is it? Number one. Write down every single day three different amazing things that you're grateful for. Your kids, your wife, your husband, your parents, your job, new customer, the car broke down but then miraculously recovered by itself, without it costing an arm and a leg… some amazing refund you got from some insurance company you forgot you even have, all types of fantastic things. Write down every day three things that you're happy for, that you're Modeh Ani (I thank) Hashem (G'd) for. On the other side of the book… on the other side of the book… write down miracles that have happened to you. If you have some things that ring the bell right away, write them down. Don't write a Megillah (Scroll, long story) on everyone. Write down one sentence… something easy to read. 1. Hashem (G'd) saved me from a car accident on such and such a date. 2. Hashem (G'd) saved me from a surgery on such and such a date. 3. I met my wife and she's the greatest thing in the world. 3. We had a kid. Whatever miracles happen to you. And then, anytime other miracles happen to you, add it to the list. So every day, initially, you have the job of writing three things that you're happy for, that you thank Hashem (G'd) for… and different miracles that have happened to you. After that, every day, you have to add three more things to your Thank Hashem (G'd) for… and if any miracle happened to you that day, which if you pay enough attention, certainly there's miracles that happen to you every day, but now what do you do with this? Any time you have any type of anxiety, any type of depression, any type of mood swing, stop everything, open the book, First… Look at the blessings that you've… over the last week, months, year, two year,… it elevates… it gives new life to your… Wow. Look how many things that Hashem (G'd) gave me. I'm still unhappy because I don't have either this or I don't have that, I didn't get this or I didn't get that… It kind of an ungrateful person am I. Look how much Hashem (G'd) gave me, but then sometimes… that the person is feeling like they are alone in this battle… in this war that they're fighting in life… so then you go to the other side of the book… what are the other side of the book say… all the miracles… now you read through the miracles that have happened to you… and you start reliving them… you're reliving the miracles… wow yeah I forgot about that… when… saved me from that accident… wow I forgot about that where a bunch of money showed up… I don't even know till this day why… wow what happened… how I met my spouse… oh wow… all these miracles… you relive something that happened to you five years ago… guess what… all of a sudden you realize who is with you right now… and you know what happens to the depression… to the anxiety… you know what happens to it… runs away… it has nothing to do with you… has nothing to do with you… so a person can get to teshuva (repentance) by simply doing that… where they realize the glory of… the extraordinary gift that Hashem (G'd) gives us every second… that's one option… second reason a person can do… a thousand years ago… is that when a person is subjected to the creator's rebuke and reproach for his misdeeds and wrongdoing… they may come to him through the prophet of his generation… if he lived at the time of when there was prophecy… obviously that's not today… or he could get the message from Hashem’s (G'd's) faithful Torah… by learning Torah… you see wow this applies to me… look the rabbi's talking about me right now… this is answering my question… he's talking to me… that's it… or three… through… generation is ever left without one… as our masters of blessed memory said… before the son of Moshe (Moses) had set… the son of Yehoshua bin Nun (Joshua son of Nun) his disciple rose… before the son of Eliyahu (Elijah) set… the son of Shmuel (Samuel) has risen… oh I'm sorry… before Eliyahu (Elijah)… set, before he passed away Shmuel (Samuel) came into the world. What is Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed be He) saying? You're crying about the fact that you don't have open miracles like at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher)… the time of… yeah but I don't learn that much… I don't really understand… don't worry… every generation will have someone that's a speaker… that's going to tell people the truth about the… tell people who the heretics are… tell people what to stay away from… tell people to do teshuva (repentance)… tell people what the Torah is really saying… why… because this Hashem (G'd) says is my claim against anyone that has excuses saying… yeah yeah but I didn't live with that generation… it was a tough generation… they told me nonsense… each generation I promise to give you the leaders that are appropriate for that generation… that will speak to you directly. And that way, when you hear this rebuke, you know that's coming from Hashem (G'd). Yeah, it's coming from the rabbi, it's coming from the shul (synagogue), it's coming from the USB, it's coming from a YouTube, it's coming from a book, but it's Hashem (G'd). Hashem (G'd) made sure that you opened that book. Hashem (G'd) made sure that you press on that lecture. You go on the B’ezrat Hashem (With G'd's help) app, you go on AI Rabbi, you go on Rabbi Ephraim's Shiurim (lectures), you go and do that, you hear a specific shiur (lecture), that has to do with your issue. Why? Hashem (G'd) is talking to you, through that… throat. Because that's how he runs the world. This, is a promise from Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed be He), that he will never abandon us. Every generation will have people that will help us do teshuva (repentance). …we've merited… we've had… to help so many people do… to remind… to see amazing stories of what happens to their life after they do teshuva (repentance)… they watch one film… they watch a second… one lecture… two lectures… four lectures… before they know it. So listen… I don't watch anything else but lectures… and it's helping my life… it's helping my marriage… it's helping with my relationship with my kids… it's helping my business… helping everything… yeah exactly… it's amazing to see it… and that's the second way that people do teshuva (repentance)… second reason… third reason says the… when a person observes the testing and severe punishment inflicted by Hashem (G'd) on a person who took the route he himself had taken in deviating from… he learns a lesson from the plight of his fellow and turns back to Him for fear of His punishment and fear His vengeance. What happens? One day, the guy has nothing to do and he goes on the internet… or she goes on the internet. She presses, scrolls around, she says, oh, look at that. What is that? Hashem (G'd) took back His millions. Not so religious, but Hashem (G'd) millions took back… sounds interesting… they pressed play… and they see an inspiring story about this guy… used to be a… wall street… made a lot of money… wow this is inspiring… I want to make a lot of money… but then the story goes on… all of a sudden… you start seeing that this guy's life goes from heaven to hell… surgeries… accidents… major losses… lawsuits… horrible things… every disaster that can happen happens to this guy… and they start realizing… wait wait… he said that he was violating Shabbat (Sabbath)… he says he was intermarried… I'm intermarried… he says he was this… what happens… they start… yeah the story… the story ended up good… and there was a happy ending and life turned around… great… but wait a minute… hold on a second… I haven't turned around yet… I haven't started keeping Shabbat (Sabbath)… I haven't started fixing my relationship… I haven't started doing that… those bad things haven't happened to me yet… but now they start realizing… wait a minute… is that going to happen to me also… and that message gets them to do teshuva (repentance)… why… they see somebody suffer as a result of… get shocked… punishes… that punishment overtakes a person… and that person is met with some misfortune… As soon as that person perceives what actually is happening. Realizes that this is a punishment. You lost your money… or you lost your spouse. Or you lost your health. Or you lost whatever it is that you lost. The suffering you have is because Hashem (G'd) is punishing you. Because you betrayed Him. You went against His Torah. As soon as a person realizes what is happening. He shakes off his slumber and awakens. And he renounces sin. And turns back to Hashem (G'd). …then the… says who's the better one… obviously the best one is the first one… the one that realizes… listen Hashem (G'd) is the best… he gives me so much… let me do… but let me… let me keep the… let me stop being a loser… ungrateful person… that's the best one… but unfortunately not every person is that… in fact most people are not… but you don't have to be the last guy… you don't have to be the guy that Hashem (G'd) took back his millions… that suffered endless suffering… that only my enemy should have. You don't have to be that guy. You could be the other two. The one that hears the rebuke and realizes… I have to get the animal out of it. I gotta stop being an animal. I gotta stop being a loser. I gotta stop being an ungrateful person to Hashem (G'd). …no, at the worst case, you watch, somebody else is losing. Somebody else is dying. Somebody else is… take the message. Hashem (G'd) is showing you that misfortune to get you to do teshuva (repentance), to tell you, listen, this could happen to you. When? Any given moment. The only reason why He's showing you this is because He wants you to do teshuva (repentance). And guess what? Says when a person does this… it lightens their punishment… it lightens their punishment… the sooner a person does teshuva (repentance), the lighter the punishment. If you do teshuva (repentance) simply by realizing all the good… and that's it… you're literally eliminating the punishment… you hear the rebuke from the… you started doing teshuva (repentance)… You're eliminating nearly all the punishment that you're supposed to get because you're getting the message… But if a person is obnoxious and stubborn and arrogant and thinks he knows better and doesn't want to listen… then unfortunately all they're doing is they're allowing their animal to take control… And those that allow the animal to take control will not only suffer from their own… and their own eternity… But they'll suffer from every fruit that they create… Whatever business they build… As successful as it gets… in the end will bring them enormous sorrow… Whatever relationships they build… whatever moments of joy they get out of it initially… ultimately it will be the biggest heartbreaks… the children that they raise and sacrifice for will curse them and insult them… why… in the end everyone has to get a chance to do teshuva (repentance)… and when a person doesn't do teshuva (repentance) the easy way… by simply understanding that that's what they're supposed to do… this is why they're in this world… then Hashem (G'd) sends stronger and stronger messages… and then makes a person realize that all you've spent your time, your efforts… your resources, your strength… thinking that you will benefit… ended up being spoiled rotten potatoes… you went against Hashem (G'd)… and you did not benefit… may be his will that each and every single person that ever hears this today and forever more will get the message directly to their heart and their mind… and make the right decision to do teshuva (repentance) now… abandon sin… say I'm sorry to Hashem (G'd)… have remorse… and get other people to do teshuva (repentance)… now start some of the questions… provided… it's discussed in there with multiple sources from the… from the… from different major… and… and yes the person that is for example doing the greatest… such as learning… but then he goes home and he ends up being a… or does something, a… all of the merits that he got for learning Torah… which is endless… strengthen the Sitra Achra (the other side, representing evil)… which is the wife of the Satan… and now she is even stronger to entice him to continue repeating the sin… can he recover it? sure… but he has to do complete teshuva (repentance)… can't just recover it where he does the sin, then he stops, he goes back, and then he says the sins again, you know, he has to do complete teshuva (repentance). A person has to do complete teshuva (repentance). Surely Hashem (G'd) is going to reward him for it. But it doesn't, it's not something that you can just play ping pong with. But I highly recommend people to download the guide that we have on our website. On the e-book section, there's a guide called Guide to Tikkun HaBrit (Rectification of the Covenant). Over there, there's over one hundred pages of different material, lectures… books, write-ups that a person can go through and understand exactly what happens if they stay sinning… what happens if they do teshuva (repentance)… how to do teshuva (repentance)… how to eliminate this… it's a proven system that's helped thousands and thousands of people around the world, We've helped more people eliminate this disastrous sin than people can imagine. But, as much as we've put effort into it, and money into it, and resources and everything into it, at the end of the day, it still requires a person's commitment to doing teshuva (repentance), and following what it says. And when they do, it changes their life in every single aspect. So download that… Follow every single step… Watch every lecture… Do everything that it says over there… Literally… Make that a significant part of your life… You'll see that the more you are immersed in it and understanding it and learning about it and following every page and doing everything… You'll see how this horrible, horrible thing turned into a blessing… your marriage turns… that's shaky turns into a blessing… your relationship with your kids that's shaky turns into a blessing… financial crisis… financial success… it's amazing… that's the thing that people don't understand… have one guy that… you know… regular normal Joe… not… not a big moneymaker… But he always thought how could I possibly ever make more? I mean I have a job… I make, I don't know, $40,000-$50,000 a year… which is not much money where he lives. How could I ever make more? Well guess what? Just the other day he told me he did something… he forgot about some thing that he did a few years ago. Ended up making him like $300,000-$400,000. …how you forget about… I don't know… but the point is that when Hashem (G'd) wants to give you more reward… it doesn't have to come from the natural way you think… why do you get it? because he's making the right steps in the… I have many stories like this of people that have done serious teshuva (repentance) for wasting seed… for this horrible horrible thing that Parashat Noach (The Weekly Torah Portion of Noah) specifically says Hashem (G'd) destroyed the world because people were acting immoral, people were wasting seed… What Tehillim (Psalms) can help… What… What Tehillim (Psalms) Can help My repentance. Reading any Tehillim (Psalms) is always good. But the first thing that a person should do is the steps we discussed. Number one. Stop the sin. That's the first step. Get educated about teshuva (repentance). About the sin itself. The consequence of it… And follow everything that we discussed… You want to read Tehillim (Psalms) to strengthen your heart a little bit… No problem… But reading Tehillim (Psalms) in itself is not going to help a person do teshuva (repentance)… As far as a person has to take action… should I remove… that appear spontaneously… can we bring them… you're allowed to neuter pets if it's for such purpose. A Jew is not allowed to. But a non-Jew is allowed. Because a Jew is commanded according to some sages by the Torah not to cause harm to animals unless it's for the sake of using them for food or for other things. But just simply neuter a dog or something like that is not allowed for a Jew. [Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 272:9] why did Adam (Adam) keep Shabbat (Sabbath) if he wasn't Jewish… because… What… The Oral Torah… already on day one… and we had the Oral Torah early on day one… and the… says that our forefathers and the main tzadikim (righteous people) throughout the generations kept different parts of the Torah… even though… although they weren't obligated, like our forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, kept all of the mitzvot (commandments). Kept all of the mitzvot (commandments), because they loved Hashem (G'd), and they feared Hashem (G'd), and they wanted to serve Hashem (G'd) in the highest possible way. But the Zohar says that since technically Judaism wasn't created until Har Sinai (Mount Sinai)… and technically they weren't… they weren't obligated to keep Shabbat (Sabbath)… if someone would say… there would decree to be Noahides… as far as halacha (Jewish law) is concerned… so it says that Noahides keep Shabbat (Sabbath)… yes… but you have to understand… in order to eliminate any type of issue of… in case he is forbidden from observing Shabbat (Sabbath)… what would he do… he would make a minor violation… what's the minor violation… he would create a cow… he used… to create a cow from nothing every Shabbat (Sabbath)… and creating is not allowed on… this is similar to someone that's in the process of conversion to Judaism… they have to keep 99% of the mitzvot (commandments)… 99% of Shabbat (Sabbath)… so they keep Shabbat (Sabbath) like a regular Jew… except that they will… let's… they turn on or turn off the light once. And they'll get to 100% once they convert. So it's not that they were obligated to keep. They wanted to keep. Now a person today can't say… no I want to be like Avraham Avinu (Abraham our Father)… I'm going to keep 99% of Shabbat (Sabbath). And 99% of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Even though I have no intention of converting. No. That's not allowed. Why? Because Chazal (Our Sages) specifically said that unless a person is a Jew or in the process of conversion… there's no permission to just start taking on the Jewish mitzvot (commandments) and the prayers and so on on yourself… and say you're Avraham Avinu (Abraham our Father)… Avraham Avinu (Abraham our Father) and Yitzchak (Isaac) and Yaakov (Jacob) didn't have the option of converting to Judaism because that wasn't until Har Sinai (Mount Sinai)… but they are our forefathers nonetheless… how are we to understand organized prayer verses prayer from the heart… ok so a Jew has to pray… a man, a Jewish man has to pray 3 times a day… the Shacharit (Morning Prayer), Mincha (Afternoon Prayer), and Arvit (Evening Prayer). The morning, the afternoon, and the night prayer. Those are the three prayers. Ideally, you should pray with a minyan (prayer quorum), which is a quorum of 10 Jews that are Torah observant, or more. 10 or more. Meaning he would be number 10 or more. And that is the ideal. A woman has to pray only once a day, a Jewish woman. And she does not have to pray in a minyan (prayer quorum). She could pray by herself… which is the most common. But the point is the reason why… the quorum is more significant than praying by yourself is because when a person prays by themselves… their prayer is like any other person. They are not always perfect. Sometimes they are in the mood. Sometimes they are not in the mood. Sometimes they are focused. Sometimes they are not focused. Sometimes they are saying their prayer and they are thinking about their car or their grocery list or their problems or whatever it is instead of thinking about Hashem (G'd). So their prayer is not perfect… And even if some parts of it are really good… The rest of it is not good… Whereas when there is a quorum… When there is a minyan (prayer quorum)… What Hashem (G'd) does is He takes the best part of each one of the prayers… Each one of the people that's in a minyan (prayer quorum)… And he combines it in order to elevate a perfect prayer… To credit everyone with a perfect prayer… So the prayer of a minyan (prayer quorum) is going to be superior to the prayer of an individual… Now this does not compete with the prayer from your heart, meaning with your own words. Prayer from your heart, from your own words, you can do at any given time. And you should do. Whenever you can. But you don't have an obligation to do like you do the other prayers that I just mentioned. This was all for Jews. Now for non-Jews, on the other hand, there is no organized prayer. Non-Jews, their prayer is from their heart all the time, whenever they can. Every day, every afternoon, every hour, whenever they want. Whenever they can, prayer from their heart. They should not pray from the Jewish prayer book because it's not meant for them. For them to say certain prayers would be a lie. Like for a non-Jew to say… is a lie. Why? Because it's referring specifically to… So… You're not… you may be righteous, you may be wonderful… you may be supporting Israel… you may be supporting Torah… but you are still not… you can't say things that are not relevant to you… or… that sanctified us and commanded us… he did not command you anything… he did not command you to keep anything… he commanded you to keep the Noahide laws… you can't say certain blessings when they're not relevant to you… it would be a lie… so a prayer for a Noahide should be from their own heart… from their own words… and typically, those are the best prayers. For a Jew, they have the obligation for a man, like I said, to pray three times. If they could pray also from their heart,… and in the rest of Judaism, they just simply call it to pray to Hashem (G'd). You could do it either, like I said, with your own words. You could read Tehillim (Psalms), you could read Psalms. Even non-Jews could read Psalms. And that's certainly a plus, but there is an added benefit to the quorum, to the minyan (prayer quorum) prayer, and there is certainly an added reward for fulfilling what Hashem (G'd) obligated you to do versus the extra. Meaning, people would think, well, if I do the prayer from my heart, since it's elective, it should be worth more than the one that I'm commanded. Wrong. The reward is higher for fulfilling the will of Hashem (G'd), the commandment of Hashem (G'd), than for fulfilling something that Hashem (G'd) didn't command. You still get rewarded for what Hashem (G'd) didn't command if it's good, but it's not higher. It's less. Because it's important for a person to know that following the will of Hashem (G'd), that's what Hashem (G'd) calls… We learn in this week's parasha (Torah portion), where when Noach (Noah) brought a sacrifice to Hashem (G'd), it says, this was a pleasing aroma to Hashem (G'd). And Rashi (a leading medieval commentator on the Torah and Talmud) says, what is pleasing aroma? Hashem (G'd) doesn't smell, eat, drink. What is pleasing aroma? It always says that when we do a sacrifice. Why is this pleasing aroma? This is when Hashem (G'd) sees that his creation is fulfilling his will. His children are doing what he commanded them to do. That's in essence pleasing. Pleasing meaning that he now can give them the reward he has wanted to give them. G'd desires to give us a reward… if you will… But he doesn't give us the reward unless we fulfill our role… so when we do what he said… what he commanded us to do… in essence we enable him to fulfill his desire if you will… Which is to reward us… when we go against him… then we eliminate Hashem (G'd)… his ability to fulfill his desire of rewarding us… because he's not gonna reward us for going against him… so when a person is fulfilling the will of Hashem (G'd)… following the commandments… certainly they're gonna get rewarded much more than if they're doing something extra… and this applies both to Noahides as well as to Jews… sometimes… you know… Noahides think that if they do the extras… even though the… say they're not allowed to keep Shabbat (Sabbath)… they'll do the extra… they'll get rewarded for it… they'll get punished for it… not rewarded… why… cuz you're forbidden… so always know that you're supposed to do what… much more than what you think you said… what you think he should say… why is circumcision required by Jewish law and not Christians… first you have to know that circumcision is the covenant that Hashem (G'd) made with Avraham Avinu (Abraham our Father). That's actually something that's coming up in the weekly Torah portion, in the next couple of weeks. That's a commandment that Hashem (G'd) decreed again to Am Yisrael (the Jewish people) at Har Sinai (Mount Sinai). This is part of the Torah, it's a commandment for us to circumcise our kids. The non-Jews are not commanded to circumcise their kids. because they don't have the same covenant as the Jews… the followers of the New Testament… whether it be Christians or Catholics or whatever other sects there are out there… unfortunately what they are not realizing is that they are not following the Old Testament… what we call the Torah… they are following the New Testament… which is idol worship… because the New Testament contradicts the Old Testament. Even though your pastors and priests say, no, it's a continuation. There's the Old Testament and it continues to New Testament. It's completely false. The New Testament contradicts the Old Testament by saying that the laws are no longer valid, that Yeshua (Jesus) says that He's bigger than Shabbat (Sabbath), He even violates Shabbat (Sabbath), He goes against the sages, which He calls the Pharisees, the point is that the New Testament doesn't follow any of the Torah commandments… none of them… they don't even follow the 10 commandments… even the 10 commandments they don't follow… 4th commandment is observing Shabbat (Sabbath)… do Christians observe Shabbat (Sabbath)? no, they don't observe Shabbat (Sabbath)… why? because again Yeshua (Jesus) told them that… So there's no more Shabbat (Sabbath), He's bigger than Shabbat (Sabbath)… so again the New testament is idol worship… it's not the truth of G'd… and if anyone wants to learn more about this topic… just go to my YouTube channel or my app and just type in the name Christianity or New Testament or Yeshua (Jesus)… and the search box… is a bunch of different lectures that i've made about the topic… bringing different proofs of how the New Testament is complete falsehood and idol worship… And b’ezrat Hashem (with G'd's help), how it's helped, these lectures have helped countless former Christians abandon their idolatry and become either righteous Noahides or some of them even converted to Judaism. b’ezrat Hashem (with G'd's help). …is wasting sin, is wasting seed a big sin for a non-Jew? Wasting seed is forbidden for everyone. It is a bigger sin for a Jew than a non-Jew… but is certainly considered disgusting in the eyes of G'd even if a non-Jew does it. One of the examples that the Torah uses as a source for showing how this is forbidden both for Jews and non-Jews is when the sons of Yehuda (Judah), the son of Yaakov (Jacob), he had two sons, both of them wasted seed and Hashem (G'd) killed both of them. They weren't Jewish. They were considered Noahides. Hashem (G'd) killed both of them. And there are many other examples that chachamim (wise men) say wasting seed is forbidden both for Jews and non-Jews. It's not the same level of prohibition… but it certainly is not a good thing to do regardless of whether a person is Jewish or non-Jewish, and… every person that uses their common sense knows within them that it is wrong. How? Your body tells you. There's a significant difference in your emotional and physical feelings after procreation. A person is with, even if it's not for a result of having children, just simply person with their spouse… versus a person committing some type of adultery or immorality… with self or with others… all these other things that are out there. The person feels it right away. There's an immediate down. There's an immediate dreadful feeling. Every person. The joy that they, the elation that a person gets is the… the rise… but as soon as they get to the so-called destination… immediately drops… it's like… it's no different than when people are drug addicts… not just figuratively speaking but actually physically speaking… when they… when they monitored the… the brain… which you actually… you guys are going to see in my new film… there's a section about tikkun habrit (rectification of the covenant) in there… there's people that have monitored the brain and see the impact that this has on a person's brain versus drug addicts… And it's the same exact thing… They both are sick… You're not going to see the same thing for people that have normal… You know… procreation with their spouse… You're not going to see the same thing… So it's not about… oh this seed or that seed… no no… The actual byproduct is… but how and with whom has the impact… so this also shows you that there's more to the body than just the physical flesh… there's a soul… spiritual element that science cannot explain… because you have seed leaving on the right… seed leaving on the left… but the brain and body and emotional being… state of being of the person are significantly different… and these two outcomes… and one end it's a disaster… another end it's a… elevation… happiness… joy and so on… two complete… you know… same exact action… two completely different outcomes… why… because the body is more than… you are more than just a piece of flesh… you're more than a cow… but if you act like a cow… if you act like a bull… if you act like a horse, then perhaps that's why… yes. …no, I answer, amen to a Jew's blessing. Yes. …Chumash… or… Chumash… is the best publisher of Torah books in the English language. I mean, there are certainly other publishers that are very good also, but as far as the books that are only available, that are available… translation versus others… more times than not… has better… and if you compare it to… there's no comparison… is… wouldn't use it at all… even though… was the first… but it's only because I didn't know that… existed at the time… once I discovered… that… pretty much went to retirement… and I have some good notes in it… when Hashem (G'd) allowed Noach (Noah) to eat meat if Noach (Noah) ate non-kosher animal they would be extinct since there was only 2 of each non-kosher… you need 2 to reproduce… yes… so he doesn't have to eat it when there's only 2… he can wait until it gives birth… and animals, more times than not, don't have difficulty bringing more offspring to the world like humans do. Usually the labor is much shorter, and many times it's more than one offspring. So he could simply wait… and… instead of two… He'll have 17… He'll have 7… funny. …you told me that Hashem (G'd) has regrets inside of the Midrash (Rabbinic interpretations and stories). Hashem (G'd) regrets making the… G'd forbid. Hashem (G'd) does not have regrets like what we understand. …that's not the correct thing to say… where there's an ultimate goal that Hashem (G'd) has for the world and for us, we look at the world as it relates to time… the beginning… the past, the present and the future… for Hashem (G'd), there is no past, present and future… everything is all at the same time… so the beginning and the end of the world is happening right this second for Hashem (G'd). There's no difference. So to say that Hashem (G'd) is subject to the same feelings as lowly humans is completely irresponsible and foolish. But at the same token like I said before… Hashem (G'd) has a desire to reward us… hence this is the reason why He created us. Chazal (Our Sages) teaches us Hashem (G'd) created souls… but the souls… since they're emulating Hashem (G'd)… They want to be the ultimate good like him… Meaning you want to be… Just like a kid wants to be like their father… A daughter wants to be like her mother… So Hashem (G'd) is the ultimate good… So the souls want to be the ultimate good… But in order to be good… You have to create good… You have to do good… But how could they do good to Hashem (G'd)… They can't affect Him… So Him giving them good, good, good was causing them suffering… Because they felt like they were not deserving it… So therefore Hashem (G'd) said… Okay so I'll bring you into a world where you're going to be subject to tests… where my ultimate goal is to give you the good that I'm giving you… but now you're no longer going to suffer from that good… because you're going to earn that good… so when a person does something that is following the yetzer hara (evil inclination), the evil inclination… that is getting in the way of Hashem’s (G'd's) desire to give us good… because he will not give us good if we do the opposite of what… the decree is? So Hashem (G'd) in essence does not want the yetzer hara (evil inclination) to succeed… but He still created him because it is necessary for the reward to be earned. So it's not regret in a sense of how we understand regret… rather there's a regret that the yetzer hara (evil inclination) sometimes causes Hashem (G'd)… Or in essence, puts Hashem (G'd) in a situation where Hashem’s (G'd's) laws decreed that He has to punish a person and even destroy a person because the person followed the evil inclination instead of following Hashem (G'd)… So this does not bring pleasure to Hashem (G'd) to destroy a person or to punish them endlessly… But needless to say, He still does it… But again, we cannot humanize G'd and say that he subjected the same feelings and thoughts as us, there is clear verses in the Torah where Hashem (G'd) says… I don't think like you… his thoughts are not like our thoughts… so anyone that thinks that Hashem (G'd) has similar thoughts to us… similar understanding to us… is unfortunately humanizing G'd… which is… a… unfortunately a type of idolatry… I'm a baal teshuva (newly religious)… and my family pressures me to eat non-kosher and desecrate Shabbat (Sabbath)… and they belittle and remind me of my past sins and shortcomings… Any advice? Yes, if you can, move away from them to a different city. So if let's say they're in New York, move to Florida, move to Israel, move to some other place. There's no reason for you to stay next to people that are telling you that you should go against G'd and end up going to Gehennom (hell) as a result. If it's possible for you to move, move as soon as possible. …if that's not possible for you… let's say you're a young kid and you can't move somewhere… then you just have to stay strong… pray to Hashem (G'd) to give you the strength to overcome it… never listen to them about any of this stuff… don't fall for it… and you'll see that eventually they'll stop… if they see that you are not falling for their traps… eventually they'll stop… eventually they'll stop… and eventually they'll even ask you for blessings… I always tell people… Initially, people will call you crazy for doing teshuva (repentance). Later on, give it a few years, many of those people will come back to you and ask you for blessings. And eventually, all of them. Why? Hashem (G'd) says, If a person does the will of Hashem (G'd), even his enemies come and say, I'm sorry. Okay, let's see if there's more questions here. …the celebration of… for Isaac’s (Isaac's) victory, when he stopped winning, what age he was at? It is divided among… exactly the age… Somebody says… Some say a little younger… Some say older… There's no… Meaning it doesn't matter whether it's this age, or that age. …yeah if there are two animal only it's considered allowed to kill them… Is the environment breaking right now? Not necessarily true. It's not necessarily true. If the animal is dangerous, it should be tried to destroy them. I don't know why people just make up laws and make up answers. What does it do for you? And then what was my number? Okay. If I had $8,000, I would pay for… I'd pay to speak… Okay, but… would give it to you. Someone that wants to do good things. Wants to… wants to publicize the… once to… and really shows a true desire to do it… so we'll give them the opportunity to do so… um okay let's see what's a… I don't know what a… is, I'm sorry I don't know what that is. Why was the… in such a way where it's so confusing with no punctuation, no clear direction… and changing subjects without warning… and using very few words to describe complex stuff… that's part of the wisdom of the Gemara (Talmud)… one of the reasons is in order to make it difficult for people to learn it if they do not learn it from their rabbi… that is following the mesorah (tradition)… that is following the tradition… because we wanted to protect Am Yisrael (the Jewish people) from having the… read the Gemara (Talmud)… where they don't follow the mesorah (tradition)… so when they read the Gemara (Talmud)… they clearly misunderstand it… hence the reason why they use different parts, different sentences that are said in the Gemara (Talmud)… and misinterpret them… for good when they're bad… to bad when they're good… because they don't have the tradition, they don't know how to learn Gemara (Talmud)… so we don't want the… to learn Gemara (Talmud)… because it's not for them… And they are forbidden from learning it… So one of the ways to protect the Torah is to write it in such a fashion… Number two, the sages wrote in such a fashion because in order to get to the point… they didn't need as much explanation and… and clarification like we do… So what is that like? This is like for example someone asked one of the… and how come when the Rambam (Maimonides) writes a psak halacha (Jewish legal ruling)… in any part of the Rambam (Maimonides). On any part of the Yad Hachazakah (The Strong Hand). You look at it. He writes a halacha (Jewish law)… and he'll write it in two sentences, three sentences, four sentences. Even, let's say, ten sentences. But that's it… finished… and it's as clear as day. What he means, what he intends. It's as clear as day. Now, for someone today to explain Rambam (Maimonides), a… if you walk into a room, and the room is dark. There's no light at all. But you're told, and you know that there is a light switch somewhere to turn on the light. But you have no idea where this is. You don't know what shape the room is in, whether it's square or it's a round or it's rectangle or it's triangle room. All you're told is that this is a… You know the… There's a light switch. You have to find it. So what are you going to do? …you're going to touch the walls… go find the wall… start touching the walls… and move your hands around the walls looking for a switch… looking for any type of bump that may be the switch… why? because you're in darkness… now if somebody comes in and has been in this room before many times… is he going to do the same thing as you? no… where does he go? …he goes directly to where the switch is… and turns on the switch… even though it's dark… It's only dark for you because you don't know where you're going. For him, he knows exactly where the direction is. He knows exactly where the switch is. He's been there before. He goes directly to the switch, turns it on, that's it. Wastes no time. That's the difference. The sages, they knew exactly the direction from point A to point B. They didn't need all this extra words, explanations, details to know what is meant from this. …whereas we are like the person that's in a dark room for the first time looking for the light switch… in fact even the sages are… nowhere near the same level as the generations before them… like for example the generations of… the generation of Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher)… who are much greater than the sages… where they had the ability… where when they were learning Torah… Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) wrote 13 Torah scrolls… but obviously throughout the 40 years he was teaching them Torah… now Am Yisrael (the Jewish people)… they would look at a verse… regardless of what verse it is… and they would understand every single thing that has to do with that verse… they would extrapolate the entire Oral Torah… much greater than what we have today in the world… just by looking at that verse. All the secrets of the Torah, the Kabbalistic secrets, the Midrash (Rabbinic interpretations and stories) secrets, the simple meaning, every aspect of the Torah, they would just look at it and be able to do that… just by looking at the verse. But as the generations, you know, there was a degradation of the generations, the ability to do that decreased. Eventually, we got to a point where the Oral Torah had to be in written form. Originally, it was… it was just spoken. …but put the oral torah in written form by writing the… where if you look at the… the… is even more difficult than the gemara (Talmud)… and as far as the… where it's less words than the gemara (Talmud)… much less words… the… is one sentence… and the gemara (Talmud) is… sometimes explaining that one sentence… but those 20 pages you can write fifty thousand books on in today's generation… so point is that the further we go back… closer we get to… they're walking into a room and it's light for them already… there is no… there's no need for a light switch… they see light… that's what they're called… the generation of knowledge… then the room starts getting darker and darker as the generations go lower, but still at the time of the Gemara (Talmud), they know exactly where the light switch is, even though it's darker, so they just go and flip the switch… but you fast forward nearly two thousand years since then, we are in a dark room, we know the switch exists, but we have to find it, we have to toil for it, we have to earn it, we have to be gifted it by Hashem (G'd). And that's what Hashem (G'd) wants us to do. Because it's not Torah knowledge that Hashem (G'd) desires for us to have, but rather, talmud Torah (Torah study). Talmud Torah (Torah study) means studying Torah, listening to the shiur (lecture), reading the Gemara (Talmud), reading the Mishnah, reading the Chumash (Five Books of Moses), reading the commentaries,… toiling… understanding it… understanding how it applies to life… not just learning for the sake of learning… uh you know how to go back and forth with your chevruta (study partner)… of different thoughts you guys have like people… but rather understanding how to apply this to your life… if you're reading and learning Torah and have no concept of how to apply this to life… you're missing something… you're supposed to find a way to apply everything to your life in some way or another… that's the point… unfortunately many times people learn… but it doesn't really apply to their life… they don't know how to apply it to their life… or they're not taught to… to apply to their lives… so they learn all types of things… but they can't do anything with it… that's why sometimes they abandon the Torah because they feel like it's not applicable to their life… which is a big mistake… so that's why it's more important for a person to learn… then to toil the different poskim (Jewish legal rulings) and figure out how many debates there are about one particular thing… learn what… says… what is the actual… what do you do now… uh but either way the Torah is written in such a fashion because Hashem (G'd) wants us to toil for Torah… because the acquiring of Torah is not going to be done because of your intellect… Because of your memory… The acquiring Torah is because of your toil… Hashem (G'd) is going to gift it to you in the end… Just like the Gemara (Talmud) says… Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) went up to Har Sinai (Mount Sinai)… And Hashem (G'd) was his chevruta (study partner)… He was learning with him… But every time he would learn with him… Endless amount of Torah… Moshe (Moses) would forget everything… The next day he would teach him the entire Torah… And Moshe (Moses) forgot everything… And then the next day he taught him the entire Torah… And Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) forgot everything… for 40 days… 40 nights… he learns the entire thing… he forgets everything… turns the entire thing… forgets everything… and of course this is anguish… it's painful… I had the whole Torah and I lost it… okay let's do it again… the whole Torah… forgets it again… to teach us about the importance of toil… and at the end Hashem (G'd) gifted him the entire Torah… Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) had the entire Torah… what we have is the essence of the Torah. But nonetheless, Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) learned, forgot everything, learned, forgot everything… in the end, Hashem (G'd) gave him the entire Torah to teach us that Hashem (G'd) gives knowledge. That's what Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon) says, Hashem (G'd) gives knowledge. Knowledge meaning the Torah. So, how do you get the knowledge? How did you get Hashem (G'd) to give you the knowledge? By toiling. By studying and studying… and in essence figuring out why this is written in such a way… why did the… say this… Why did… say this… And you see how by using the commentaries… using the Rashi (a leading medieval commentator) and Tosafot (Talmudic commentaries)… and you know, of course, there's many, many other commentaries out there, but in the beginning when you first learn…, just start with Rashi (the commentator). If you have been learning for a while, you can do Rashi (the commentator) Tosafot (Talmudic commentaries), but the main thing is Rashi (the commentator). …that's so you can understand the basic understanding of what's happening… and you acquire more and more and more knowledge… you go through the Shas (Talmud) again and again… little by little you build up from there… many times people… they study study study… but they get nowhere… either because they don't apply things to their life… or they use their own debating… uh a desire for debate… the desire to hear themselves… to fight over the… their opinion about what it should be… that opinion… so much that they forget that there's actually a final opinion by the stages… and they end up wasting a lot of time and getting nowhere… key is to get to application… If a family member was cremated and their ashes were spread in different places… that mean that their soul will suffer… if they're a Jew… for sure they'll suffer… a non-Jew… depends… most likely they have other issues they have to deal with… not just that… because if they got to a point where they're… they weren't buried properly… that means they've made enough sins to earn such a… inappropriate burial… these types of things don't happen to just anybody… whatever a person gets in their life they earned… I don't think the law of the dark room applies for everybody… there are people that can still see the light in the room… they are just fewer in number… no… there is nobody in the world that can see what the sages of the previous generation were able to see… in fact there is no one that can see what… was able to see… and he was just ten years ago… there is no one in the world that is as great as the… there is no one that can be like… was… no one that can see what… needless to say… he was able to look at… no… you think… these types of discussions by just simply telling to a person you know what fine you think you know that much… okay go to… real serious… that are… that have… know how… that know how to… have read… serious people that know how to… go let them tell you… ask you one question… see if… answer it… one question… one question… let's say you know a simple question… most people don't realize… not only will they not be able to answer the question… they will not be able to understand the question… in any language… it doesn't matter… english… spanish… whatever… first language… second language… fourth language… they will not be able to understand the question… why… because they don't have the tools… they're not… the tools… people think just because they maybe they watched a few lectures… they read a few books… that makes them… you don't understand what is a… a different species… a different… it might as well be a different… an alien… it's closer to you than… but the average person that has no concept of what it is… doesn't understand that. They think, oh, why? But I heard the Rabbi over here and I heard the Rabbi over there and I watched a thousand lectures or ten thousand lectures so I'm a Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar). No. You could watch lectures for forty years and still not be a Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar). In fact, you could teach Torah for forty years and still not be a Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar). Doesn't mean you're an idiot. You could be smart. You could be great. You could be wonderful. You could be… But Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar) is a different species. And the Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars), and the greatest of the Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars) today cannot compare to… Even the ones that can mention all the gemara (Talmud) in their heart… and they will tell you themselves… they cannot compare to… They cannot compare to any of the great sages from 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Why? That's the way the Torah works. That's the way the Torah works. And one of the main things is is because we do not have the capabilities of the previous generations because we're not built the same way. For example, most people, when they think about Adam HaRishon (The First Man), they think about some guy that was perhaps really, really tall, that… arms, legs, and head, and eyes and ears, and that's it. They don't realize there's nothing further from that. He did not look like us in any shape or way, and he was the… all of the souls, all of the souls… now the souls that came from him… they were complete souls… we are a microcosm of a soul, each… each one of us is not a full soul… nobody is a full soul, we're just part of a soul… that have reincarnated to fix this part… the other part perhaps is already fixed or something else happened to it… either way, we are part of a soul… have no concept of the capabilities and the abilities of a complete soul… so everyone… even a regular person will have an easy time… go study… you'll understand within ten minutes that to read the entire… it's very difficult to understand. So when you have somebody that lived 500 years ago saying this is going to easy for everybody in his generation to do it every month. Every average person. When you read… what he did everyday. He wrote in a journal, he did what he study every single day. This is more than what you would study in your life time. …did every day… it is not humanly possible for us to do what he did in one day… or one week… or one month… or… or year… but that's the problem… people do not understand what a… is… needless to say a… a… we have no concept of it… why… because we're comparing everything to what's familiar to us… and what's familiar to us… us… everyone… Everyone is most familiar with themself. And that's the right thing. That's the wrong thing to do. Because the previous generations were nothing like us. Nothing like us. And to have complete souls. To a partial soul. It's like comparing a… uh… I don't know… it's comparing like a candle that you just lit… Shabbat (Sabbath) candle… you let your little candle… comparing it to a volcano… if that makes any sense… comparing the little candle you lit for Shabbat (Sabbath)… little one candle you bought for a dollar… comparing that to a volcano with lava in it… and… all the things that come with it… can you compare the two… no… they both fire… yeah, but come on rabbi… Yeah, exactly. Come on rabbi… exactly… soul today… so full of… 500 years ago… soul over a thousand years ago… Some… that you go back… it's… it's just nothing… maybe cried because when he would shoot an arrow… it would… only one arrow… only killed eight hundred people… one… or eight hundred people… 50 people… because he says if I served Hashem (G'd) perfectly… one arrow would kill a thousand people… now go take the best arrow in the world… in fact a rocket… not an arrow… Shoot a rocket… shoot a Bazooka… shoot a missile… you're not going to kill 800 people every time… in Israel every single day… hundreds of them… hundreds of them… Hashem (G'd) protects us… it's not killing people every day… any direction he shoots the rocket… he can shoot it up… shoot it sideways… he could shoot it with eyes closed… the racket… the… the… the arrow goes zoom… kills 1 2 3 4 5… it doesn't finish… doesn't quit… doesn't get tired until 800 enemies are dead… can we comprehend such a thing? No! To us, that's a fairy tale in our mentality. But of course, it's all true. It's even more so on a spiritual aspect. teach us that when… was running away from… he didn't run away alone. He was with…, and the Prophet. And that night, they ran away. They learned 100 years worth of Torah… and one night… 100 years worth of Torah in one night… can we comprehend such a thing… we cannot comprehend how our body works to go to the bathroom… we cannot comprehend how this delicious fish or turkey or steak or apple all comes out the same way… we have no concept… no concept of how our eye works… needless to say we have no concept of how time works… so when i say to you… learned in one night a hundred years worth of Torah… there's no… there's not enough tools in the… the… the brain and the soul that we have to comprehend what that even means… what does that mean… it literally means 100 years worth of Torah… but how does that happen exactly… that's the point… if you're asking how does that happen… then you're smart enough to know that you don't know… but if you think you know… then okay then you know… again I can go back to the… and the… so a person needs to know where they stand… and not delude themselves to believe that they are more than what they are… because if you delude yourself to believe you more than what you are… in reality you're even less than what you are… a person that wants to be something special… first and foremost humble themselves to realize where they stand… and stop deluding themselves to thinking that they are anything… you read any of the… of the works of the… you listen to any of their speeches… you read any of their books… you see that the greater the… the more humble they were… but you're never going to truly understand the wisdom of the Torah until you learn Shas (Talmud) and Poskim (Jewish legal decisors)… and the average person… and even people that have learned Torah… they're gonna go to somebody that's a… and they'll be tested… they'll tell you okay, what did you learn today? oh I learned Gemara (Talmud)… which daf (page of Talmud) you learned? okay, he'll start asking you questions about what you learned… you won't even know what he's saying… Needless to say what the answer is… But that is the thing that is unfortunately the thing that people do not understand… They do not understand the treasures that we have in the world… When I tell you guys we are supporting a couple of… We have Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars)… We have… You guys do not understand the treasures that we have… You do not understand… People think it is just a bunch of people that learn… They have good memories… You have no understanding… These are treasures… These are treasures… these are literally… an alien coming from Pluto is closer to the average person than a… an alien with 17 arms is closer to an average person than a… are the greatest gift the world has… but unfortunately we are in a world of lies… so unless a person loves the Torah, appreciates the Torah… they don't think they… they don't even know the difference… what's the difference between him and me… which by the way… says… anyone that says that they don't see the big deal about Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars) or Rabbis… what do they do for us… that is the definition of a heretic… so it's important for a person to know where they stand… and do not delude themselves… I'm a full… now… but during my pre… period… was not doing an action to break Shabbat (Sabbath) in some way. Is that something that needs to be repaired retroactively? No. Now that you've converted, you're okay. You're okay. Okay, it will take me one question and we'll finish. Why are the… drawings not depicted as colorful as the real… himself used white… blue and yellow marble uh to coat it… because to replicate the beauty that existed is impossible… in fact chachamim (wise men) say anyone that did not see the… that Herod built… he repaired the… has never seen anything beautiful… meaning the beauty of the… cannot be depicted in the pictures… it's not… it's not… it's not possible… it's like for example the… the… the music… there's a… i believe there's… uh seven… uh music tones… i think it's called music notes… and the… has an eighth… yeah the eighth note… now for me to explain to you… even if i was… had a book that would explain exactly what it sounded… would mean nothing… right… we have no concept of what the eighth note… this… but… he had it… he had… he had something that's not… that we do not have in the world… there's many wisdoms in the world that we no longer have… had the ability to tell you if you're reading who you are in your reincarnation… they were able to know the conversation between trees… where every leaf that would move… they would know exactly what that would mean… they… i mean there's just… this endless wisdom that… that does not… you know… the… had… uh that is available out there… that uh we do not have… so same thing with the beauty… but to uh to draw the beauty of what existed in the past is not possible… okay… last question… why the Jews cast… because… was a heretic Jew that pretended to be G'd… and because of that he is in hell… and he will never come out of there… got people to worship him instead of worshiping G'd… and the New Testament is full of idolatry… it humanizes G'd… it divides G'd into three… when there are clear verses in the Torah that say that G'd is only one… and G'd is not a human… and in so many words… if you want to know why… anyone that believes in anything that the New Testament says… it's simply idolatry… you want to know more about that… you can go to my YouTube channel and just type in… or Jesus or New Testament… and you'll see there's a bunch of lectures there that show you proofs from the New Testament that prove that it's false… man-made falsehood… and that's the reason why Jews reject Yeshua (Jesus) and the New Testament… because it's falsehood… simple… is one allowed to use lip balm made with non-kosher beef tallow… uh well if… well first of all you can't use it on Shabbat (Sabbath) because it's… second… even if it's during the week… if the lip balm does not have taste… uh… then there's no problem… But if it has flavouring… then it's more of an issue… If it goes into your mouth and so on… Okay… Alright guys… Reminder for everyone… Anyone that wants to donate and support the organization… You can either take me up on the offer for phone calls, like I mentioned,… there's the two big options over there. If somebody simply wants to donate less money just to support, you could donate over here, over there, you could donate on our regular website, which is bh-tora.org or bezatashem.org… or you could also become one of the paid subscribers on YouTube… and if you send us a copy of your monthly receipt to our email, then we'll send you one of these cool cups for free. Wherever you are. We recently sent a bunch of them to Indonesia. We sent some to Africa. We sent some to France. We sent some to Germany, England. Baruch Hashem (Thank G'd), we have fans all over the world. We have students all over the world. So Baruch Hashem (Thank G'd), anyone that wants one of these can subscribe as a paid subscriber on YouTube and send us the receipt and we'll send you one as a gift. …but of course we hope that you stay the subscriber after that… uh you could also go to the… and get this… just simply buy it… or many other things that are on the shop… it's another way to support the organization… you could also sponsor one of our… and the… there's several options to sponsor… for a week… for two weeks… for a month… for more… on the website… uh there's ways that you can become a sponsor… next big film… there's plenty of ways for you to help us, help Am Yisrael (the Jewish people), help the world see the truth of the Torah and run away from the falsehood. And with the help of G'd, we will all succeed together to sanctify Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s (The Holy One, Blessed be He's) name. Last but not least, don't forget to subscribe to AI Rabbi because that's the greatest tool in the world that you could have. Ask any question you possibly want, you'll have the answers there… and also get some other people to do it… because literally it's a mitzvah (commandment, good deed)… and it's a form of kiruv (Jewish outreach)… to get other people to sign up… that they have this… it's a great tool for people to… to have… their answers… their questions answered… and it's another way for them to learn… whether they're learning Gemara (Talmud) or they're learning Poskim (Jewish legal decisors)… or they're learning weekly parasha (Torah portion)… or they just simply have general questions about what should they do with their husband or their kids if they do such and such… is answers to everything… and it's all based on a lot of work… so it's AI Rabbi… you could use it there… thanks again for learning with us… thank you for the support… bless each and every single one of you… here we will learn again next week… i'm not sure if we'll… uh which… certainly… i'm gonna do my best to do at least one… next week… i just have to take care of some family matters um and some other things… meeting is a little bit difficult to do… every… will do everything we possibly can to at least have… next week again… If not, more than that,… Thanks again for the support. bless you guys and… you'll have a Shabbat Shalom (Peaceful Sabbath). …Next, I want to see what else the rabbi could do. Now let's say you have a relative that speaks a different language, whether it's Spanish, Russian, or 30 other languages that we have in the system… and you want to answer the same question that you had or a different question… but in Spanish. So I asked it. Can you tell me what I should tell my kids… but what should I teach my kids in Spanish. Speaking here. … Okay, I think it's working fine. All right. Excellent, excellent. …or let's see… you know what… russian… give me a response in russian… as you can see… i went up there and pressed the text on top… and then i asked the question in english… or i could ask in chinese… i could ask the question in russian… but i could simply just tell the system to uh respond in uh in a different language if i want… and it will respond in a different language… and then again you'll have endless sources for different things… you'll even have… in there… you'll have different things that are available out there… but we did the work for you by simply doing all the research that could possibly to be done… to make it easily accessible for you, that you could access on your own… we did for you simply by a click of a button. What else is available here? Now, of course, everyone knows one of the main ways that anyone can reach me is through whatsapp… and I think it's the best platform for messaging… and you may agree because you ask me questions on it, what about AI Rabbi, does AI Rabbi like whatsapp? Well, if you press this green button… you go to Whatsapp… and now, all of a sudden, you have A.I. Rabbein on your WhatsApp. And as you can see, I've asked him some questions. What did I ask him? I asked him an audio question. Do the heretics get punished in this world or the next world? Let's see what A.I. Rabbein says. …lots of wonderful things. May… give him rights and happiness, that whenever we enter we will be reminded and will succeed… May… grant you knowledge and authority… Then may you have good and blessed… and… life they earned… I don't think the law of the dark room applies for everybody… there are people that can still see the light in the room… they are just fewer in number… no… there is nobody in the world that can see what the sages of the previous generation were able to see… in fact there is no one that can see what… was able to see… and he was just ten years ago… there is no one in the world that is as great as the… there is no one that can be like… was… no one that can see what… needless to say… he was able to look at… no… you think… these types of discussions by just simply telling to a person you know what fine you think you know that much… okay go to… real serious… that are… that have… know how… that know how to… have read… serious people that know how to… go let them tell you… ask you one question… see if… answer it… one question… one question… let's say you know a simple question… most people don't realize… not only will they not be able to answer the question… they will not be able to understand the question… in any language… it doesn't matter… english… spanish… whatever… first language… second language… fourth language… they will not be able to understand the question… why… because they don't have the tools… they're not… the tools… people think just because they maybe they watched a few lectures… they read a few books… that makes them… you don't understand what is a… a different species… a different… it might as well be a different… an alien… it's closer to you than… but the average person that has no concept of what it is… doesn't understand that. They think, oh, why? But I heard the Rabbi over here and I heard the Rabbi over there and I watched a thousand lectures or ten thousand lectures so I'm a Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar). No. You could watch lectures for forty years and still not be a Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar). In fact, you could teach Torah for forty years and still not be a Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar). Doesn't mean you're an idiot. You could be smart. You could be great. You could be wonderful. You could be… But Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar) is a different species. And the Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars), and the greatest of the Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars) today cannot compare to… Even the ones that can mention all the gemara (Talmud) in their heart… and they will tell you themselves… they cannot compare to… They cannot compare to any of the great sages from 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Why? That's the way the Torah works. That's the way the Torah works. And one of the main things is is because we do not have the capabilities of the previous generations because we're not built the same way. For example, most people, when they think about Adam HaRishon (The First Man), they think about some guy that was perhaps really, really tall, that… arms, legs, and head, and eyes and ears, and that's it. They don't realize there's nothing further from that. He did not look like us in any shape or way, and he was the… all of the souls, all of the souls… now the souls that came from him… they were complete souls… we are a microcosm of a soul, each… each one of us is not a full soul… nobody is a full soul, we're just part of a soul… that have reincarnated to fix this part… the other part perhaps is already fixed or something else happened to it… either way, we are part of a soul… have no concept of the capabilities and the abilities of a complete soul… so everyone… even a regular person will have an easy time… go study… you'll understand within ten minutes that to read the entire… it's very difficult to understand. So when you have somebody that lived 500 years ago saying this is going to easy for everybody in his generation to do it every month. Every average person. When you read… what he did everyday. He wrote in a journal, he did what he study every single day. This is more than what you would study in your life time. …did every day… it is not humanly possible for us to do what he did in one day… or one week… or one month… or… or year… but that's the problem… people do not understand what a… is… needless to say a… a… we have no concept of it… why… because we're comparing everything to what's familiar to us… and what's familiar to us… us… everyone… Everyone is most familiar with themself. And that's the right thing. That's the wrong thing to do. Because the previous generations were nothing like us. Nothing like us. And to have complete souls. To a partial soul. It's like comparing a… uh… I don't know… it's comparing like a candle that you just lit… Shabbat (Sabbath) candle… you let your little candle… comparing it to a volcano… if that makes any sense… comparing the little candle you lit for Shabbat (Sabbath)… little one candle you bought for a dollar… comparing that to a volcano with lava in it… and… all the things that come with it… can you compare the two… no… they both fire… yeah, but come on rabbi… Yeah, exactly. Come on rabbi… exactly… soul today… so full of… 500 years ago… soul over a thousand years ago… Some… that you go back… it's… it's just nothing… maybe cried because when he would shoot an arrow… it would… only one arrow… only killed eight hundred people… one… or eight hundred people… 50 people… because he says if I served Hashem (G'd) perfectly… one arrow would kill a thousand people… now go take the best arrow in the world… in fact a rocket… not an arrow… Shoot a rocket… shoot a Bazooka… shoot a missile… you're not going to kill 800 people every time… in Israel every single day… hundreds of them… hundreds of them… Hashem (G'd) protects us… it's not killing people every day… any direction he shoots the rocket… he can shoot it up… shoot it sideways… he could shoot it with eyes closed… the racket… the… the… the arrow goes zoom… kills 1 2 3 4 5… it doesn't finish… doesn't quit… doesn't get tired until 800 enemies are dead… can we comprehend such a thing? No! To us, that's a fairy tale in our mentality. But of course, it's all true. It's even more so on a spiritual aspect. teach us that when… was running away from… he didn't run away alone. He was with…, and the Prophet. And that night, they ran away. They learned 100 years worth of Torah… and one night… 100 years worth of Torah in one night… can we comprehend such a thing… we cannot comprehend how our body works to go to the bathroom… we cannot comprehend how this delicious fish or turkey or steak or apple all comes out the same way… we have no concept… no concept of how our eye works… needless to say we have no concept of how time works… so when i say to you… learned in one night a hundred years worth of Torah… there's no… there's not enough tools in the… the… the brain and the soul that we have to comprehend what that even means… what does that mean… it literally means 100 years worth of Torah… but how does that happen exactly… that's the point… if you're asking how does that happen… then you're smart enough to know that you don't know… but if you think you know… then okay then you know… again I can go back to the… and the… so a person needs to know where they stand… and not delude themselves to believe that they are more than what they are… because if you delude yourself to believe you more than what you are… in reality you're even less than what you are… a person that wants to be something special… first and foremost humble themselves to realize where they stand… and stop deluding themselves to thinking that they are anything… you read any of the… of the works of the… you listen to any of their speeches… you read any of their books… you see that the greater the… the more humble they were… but you're never going to truly understand the wisdom of the Torah until you learn Shas (Talmud) and Poskim (Jewish legal decisors)… and the average person… and even people that have learned Torah… they're gonna go to somebody that's a… and they'll be tested… they'll tell you okay, what did you learn today? oh I learned Gemara (Talmud)… which daf (page of Talmud) you learned? okay, he'll start asking you questions about what you learned… you won't even know what he's saying… Needless to say what the answer is… But that is the thing that is unfortunately the thing that people do not understand… They do not understand the treasures that we have in the world… When I tell you guys we are supporting a couple of… We have Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars)… We have… You guys do not understand the treasures that we have… You do not understand… People think it is just a bunch of people that learn… They have good memories… You have no understanding… These are treasures… These are treasures… these are literally… an alien coming from Pluto is closer to the average person than a… an alien with 17 arms is closer to an average person than a… are the greatest gift the world has… but unfortunately we are in a world of lies… so unless a person loves the Torah, appreciates the Torah… they don't think they… they don't even know the difference… what's the difference between him and me… which by the way… says… anyone that says that they don't see the big deal about Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars) or Rabbis… what do they do for us… that is the definition of a heretic… so it's important for a person to know where they stand… and do not delude themselves… I'm a full… now… but during my pre… period… was not doing an action to break Shabbat (Sabbath) in some way. Is that something that needs to be repaired retroactively? No. Now that you've converted, you're okay. You're okay. Okay, it will take me one question and we'll finish. Why are the… drawings not depicted as colorful as the real… himself used white… blue and yellow marble uh to coat it… because to replicate the beauty that existed is impossible… in fact chachamim (wise men) say anyone that did not see the… that Herod built… he repaired the… has never seen anything beautiful… meaning the beauty of the… cannot be depicted in the pictures… it's not… it's not… it's not possible… it's like for example the… the… the music… there's a… i believe there's… uh seven… uh music tones… i think it's called music notes… and the… has an eighth… yeah the eighth note… now for me to explain to you… even if i was… had a book that would explain exactly what it sounded… would mean nothing… right… we have no concept of what the eighth note… this… but… he had it… he had… he had something that's not… that we do not have in the world… there's many wisdoms in the world that we no longer have… had the ability to tell you if you're reading who you are in your reincarnation… they were able to know the conversation between trees… where every leaf that would move… they would know exactly what that would mean… they… i mean there's just… this endless wisdom that… that does not… you know… the… had… uh that is available out there… that uh we do not have… so same thing with the beauty… but to uh to draw the beauty of what existed in the past is not possible… okay… last question… why the Jews cast… because… was a heretic Jew that pretended to be G'd… and because of that he is in hell… and he will never come out of there… got people to worship him instead of worshiping G'd… and the New Testament is full of idolatry… it humanizes G'd… it divides G'd into three… when there are clear verses in the Torah that say that G'd is only one… and G'd is not a human… and in so many words… if you want to know why… anyone that believes in anything that the New Testament says… it's simply idolatry… you want to know more about that… you can go to my YouTube channel and just type in… or Jesus or New Testament… and you'll see there's a bunch of lectures there that show you proofs from the New Testament that prove that it's false… man-made falsehood… and that's the reason why Jews reject Yeshua (Jesus) and the New Testament… because it's falsehood… simple… is one allowed to use lip balm made with non-kosher beef tallow… uh well if… well first of all you can't use it on Shabbat (Sabbath) because it's… second… even if it's during the week… if the lip balm does not have taste… uh… then there's no problem… But if it has flavouring… then it's more of an issue… If it goes into your mouth and so on… Okay… Alright guys… Reminder for everyone… Anyone that wants to donate and support the organization… You can either take me up on the offer for phone calls, like I mentioned,… there's the two big options over there. If somebody simply wants to donate less money just to support, you could donate over here, over there, you could donate on our regular website, which is bh-tora.org or bezatashem.org… or you could also become one of the paid subscribers on YouTube… and if you send us a copy of your monthly receipt to our email, then we'll send you one of these cool cups for free. Wherever you are. We recently sent a bunch of them to Indonesia. We sent some to Africa. We sent some to France. We sent some to Germany, England. Baruch Hashem (Thank G'd), we have fans all over the world. We have students all over the world. So Baruch Hashem (Thank G'd), anyone that wants one of these can subscribe as a paid subscriber on YouTube and send us the receipt and we'll send you one as a gift. …but of course we hope that you stay the subscriber after that… uh you could also go to the… and get this… just simply buy it… or many other things that are on the shop… it's another way to support the organization… you could also sponsor one of our… and the… there's several options to sponsor… for a week… for two weeks… for a month… for more… on the website… uh there's ways that you can become a sponsor… next big film… there's plenty of ways for you to help us, help Am Yisrael (the Jewish people), help the world see the truth of the Torah and run away from the falsehood. And with the help of G'd, we will all succeed together to sanctify Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s (The Holy One, Blessed be He's) name. Last but not least, don't forget to subscribe to AI Rabbi because that's the greatest tool in the world that you could have. Ask any question you possibly want, you'll have the answers there… and also get some other people to do it… because literally it's a mitzvah (commandment, good deed)… and it's a form of kiruv (Jewish outreach)… to get other people to sign up… that they have this… it's a great tool for people to… to have… their answers… their questions answered… and it's another way for them to learn… whether they're learning Gemara (Talmud) or they're learning Poskim (Jewish legal decisors)… or they're learning weekly parasha (Torah portion)… or they just simply have general questions about what should they do with their husband or their kids if they do such and such… is answers to everything… and it's all based on a lot of work… so it's AI Rabbi… you could use it there… thanks again for learning with us… thank you for the support… bless each and every single one of you… here we will learn again next week… i'm not sure if we'll… uh which… certainly… i'm gonna do my best to do at least one… next week… i just have to take care of some family matters um and some other things… meeting is a little bit difficult to do… every… will do everything we possibly can to at least have… next week again… If not, more than that,… Thanks again for the support. bless you guys and… you'll have a Shabbat Shalom (Peaceful Sabbath). …Next, I want to see what else the rabbi could do. Now let's say you have a relative that speaks a different language, whether it's Spanish, Russian, or 30 other languages that we have in the system… and you want to answer the same question that you had or a different question… but in Spanish. So I asked it. Can you tell me what I should tell my kids… but what should I teach my kids in Spanish. Speaking here. … Okay, I think it's working fine. All right. Excellent, excellent. …or let's see… you know what… russian… give me a response in russian… as you can see… i went up there and pressed the text on top… and then i asked the question in english… or i could ask in chinese… i could ask the question in russian… but i could simply just tell the system to uh respond in uh in a different language if i want… and it will respond in a different language… and then again you'll have endless sources for different things… you'll even have… in there… you'll have different things that are available out there… but we did the work for you by simply doing all the research that could possibly to be done… to make it easily accessible for you, that you could access on your own… we did for you simply by a click of a button. What else is available here? Now, of course, everyone knows one of the main ways that anyone can reach me is through whatsapp… and I think it's the best platform for messaging… and you may agree because you ask me questions on it, what about AI Rabbi, does AI Rabbi like whatsapp? Well, if you press this green button… you go to Whatsapp… and now, all of a sudden, you have A.I. Rabbein on your WhatsApp. And as you can see, I've asked him some questions. What did I ask him? I asked him an audio question. Do the heretics get punished in this world or the next world? Let's see what A.I. Rabbein says. …lots of wonderful things. May… give him rights and happiness, that whenever we enter we will be reminded and will succeed… May… grant you knowledge and authority… Then may you have good and blessed… and…

Learn Key Terms

Hebrew	Transliteration	Explanation
פרשת נח	Parashat Noach	The weekly Torah portion about Noah, the flood, and the covenant with G'd. Rav Reuven uses this story to illustrate the consequences of unchecked sin and the necessity of teshuva.
בעזרת השם	B'ezrat Hashem	"With G'd's help." A common phrase used by religious Jews before undertaking any task, reflecting the belief that all success comes from G'd.
סידור	Siddur	Jewish prayer book. Contains the daily, Shabbat, and holiday prayers. While Rav Reuven discusses prayer in the context of teshuva, he emphasizes that non-Jews should pray from the heart in their own words, as the siddur is specifically designed for Jews.
גמרא	Gemara	The analytical and interpretive component of the Talmud. It discusses and elaborates on the Mishnah. Rav Reuven mentions the Gemara's unique style of writing and its purpose in protecting the Torah's deeper meanings. He also highlights the immense wisdom of the Sages who compiled the Gemara and their ability to extract profound insights from even the most concise passages of Torah.
שיעור	Shiur	A Torah lecture or lesson. In this context, it refers to Rav Reuven's lecture on teshuva.
צדיקים	Tzadikim	Righteous individuals. Those who consistently perform good deeds and follow G'd's commandments. Rav Reuven contrasts the tzadikim with the wicked of Noah's generation, highlighting the importance of choosing righteousness.
ערב רב	Erev Rav	"Mixed Multitude." Refers to the non-Israelite group that left Egypt with the Israelites. They are often associated with negative influences and a lack of genuine commitment to G'd. Rav Reuven connects the Erev Rav to the wicked souls created by Adam HaRishon, suggesting that the yetzer hara has been a persistent challenge throughout history.
אדם הראשון	Adam HaRishon	"The First Man," Adam. Rav Reuven discusses Adam's sin and its lasting impact on humanity, creating the wicked souls that necessitate teshuva. He also mentions Adam's unique form and the complete souls of the early generations, contrasting them with our partial souls today.
עץ הדעת	Etz HaDa'at	"Tree of Knowledge." The tree from which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat. This act of disobedience is seen as the origin of the yetzer hara and the need for teshuva.
תשובה	Teshuva	Repentance. The process of acknowledging sin, feeling remorse, confessing, and making amends. A fundamental concept in Judaism, and the central theme of Rav Reuven's shiur. He emphasizes its multifaceted nature and its availability to all, regardless of background or level of observance.
יצר הרע	Yetzer Hara	The "evil inclination." The innate human tendency towards selfishness and sin. Judaism teaches that we must constantly struggle against the yetzer hara and strive to follow the yetzer hatov (good inclination). Rav Reuven discusses the yetzer hara's presence from a young age and its role in leading people astray. He connects it to the "animal within" that we must overcome through teshuva.
יצר הטוב	Yetzer Hatov	The "good inclination." The innate human tendency towards kindness, compassion, and connection with G'd. It is the counterforce to the yetzer hara, and teshuva helps us strengthen it.
תיקון	Tikkun	Rectification or repair. Can refer to fixing a spiritual flaw, performing a specific ritual to atone for a sin, or the general concept of improving the world. Rav Reuven discusses tikkun in the context of reincarnation and the rectification of past sins.
בהמה	Behemah	Animal. Often used in a derogatory sense to describe someone behaving in an animalistic or base manner. Rav Reuven uses the metaphor of the "animal within" to represent the base desires and behaviors that we must overcome through teshuva.
נשמה	Neshama	Soul. The spiritual essence of a person. Rav Reuven discusses the complete souls of earlier generations compared to our partial souls today, impacting our capacity for spiritual understanding.
תיקון הברית	Tikkun HaBrit	"Rectification of the Covenant." Refers to specific prayers and practices to atone for the sin of wasting seed, a sin that Rav Reuven emphasizes is detrimental for both Jews and non-Jews, albeit with different levels of severity.
קדושה	Kedusha	Holiness. Can refer to G'd, sacred objects, time (like Shabbat), or a state of spiritual purity. Rav Reuven emphasizes the importance of striving for kedusha through teshuva and aligning ourselves with G'd's will.
ביטול תורה	Bitul Torah	Wasting time that could be used for Torah study. Considered a serious sin, especially for those committed to a life of Torah learning. Rav Reuven mentions this in the context of the donkey story and the importance of maximizing our time for spiritual growth.
קי יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו	Ki Yetzer Lev HaAdam Ra MiNe'urav	"For the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Genesis 8:21). A verse Rav Reuven discusses in relation to the nature of evil and the human tendency towards sin. He explores the Ramban's interpretations of this verse, highlighting the importance of early intervention and the long-term impact of childhood actions.
מבול	Mabul	The Great Flood. Rav Reuven uses the flood as an example of the consequences of widespread sin and the potential for divine punishment. He also notes that G'd promised not to destroy the world in this way again, but other forms of punishment remain possible.
רמב"ן	Ramban	Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (Nachmanides), a leading medieval scholar and commentator. Rav Reuven cites the Ramban's interpretations of "evil from youth," offering different perspectives on the nature of the yetzer hara and its development.
שערי תשובה	Sha'arei Teshuva	"Gates of Repentance." A classic work on the laws and process of repentance by Rabbi Jonah of Gerondi. Rav Reuven draws upon this work when outlining the steps and conditions of teshuva.
חובת הלבבות	Chovot HaLevavot	"Duties of the Heart." A seminal work on Jewish ethics and spiritual development by Rabbi Bachya ibn Pakuda. Rav Reuven references this work when discussing the importance of remorse and the inner dimensions of teshuva.
יונה	Yonah	Jonah, the prophet who was swallowed by a large fish. Rav Reuven mentions Jonah's call to repentance as an example of encouraging others to do teshuva.
דוד המלך	David HaMelech	King David, author of Psalms and a central figure in Jewish history. Rav Reuven uses David as an example of someone with immense Torah knowledge and spiritual capabilities, highlighting the potential for spiritual greatness even in later generations. He also mentions David's regret at not achieving even higher levels of righteousness.
הלכה	Halacha	Jewish law. The practical application of Jewish religious principles. Rav Reuven emphasizes the importance of following halacha as part of the teshuva process, particularly for Jews.
שלמה המלך	Shlomo HaMelech	King Solomon, known for his wisdom and the building of the First Temple. Rav Reuven quotes Shlomo Hamelech's teachings on raising children and the importance of discipline.
משלי	Mishlei	The Book of Proverbs, attributed to King Solomon. Rav Reuven quotes Mishlei regarding the importance of confessing and forsaking sins.
ירמיהו	Yirmiyahu	Jeremiah, a prophet who warned of the destruction of Jerusalem. Rav Reuven quotes Jeremiah regarding the importance of fearing G'd's punishment and humbling oneself before Him.
תהילים	Tehillim	Psalms. A book of the Hebrew Bible containing prayers, poems, and hymns. Rav Reuven suggests reading Tehillim as a way to strengthen one's heart during the teshuva process, but emphasizes that action is crucial.
שבת	Shabbat	The Sabbath, observed from Friday evening to Saturday evening. A day of rest and spiritual reflection. Rav Reuven mentions Shabbat observance in the context of Jewish law and the differences between Jewish and non-Jewish obligations.
יום כיפור	Yom Kippur	The Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish year. A day of fasting, prayer, and repentance. While not explicitly mentioned in this section on teshuva, it's implied as the ultimate day of teshuva in the Jewish calendar.
אברהם אבינו	Avraham Avinu	"Abraham our Father," the first patriarch. Rav Reuven mentions Abraham's keeping of all the mitzvot, even before they were formally commanded, as an example of profound love and devotion to G'd. He also uses the Akeida as an example of reincarnation, connecting Ishmael to the donkey.
יצחק	Yitzchak	Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah. Rav Reuven mentions the varying opinions on Isaac's age at the Akeida.
יעקב	Yaakov	Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebecca. Along with Abraham and Isaac, Jacob is considered a forefather who observed the mitzvot before Sinai, demonstrating the timeless nature of G'd's laws.
הר סיני	Har Sinai	Mount Sinai, where G'd gave the Torah to the Israelites. Rav Reuven discusses the giving of the Torah and the subsequent decline in spiritual capabilities across generations, highlighting the increased effort required for teshuva in later times.
מנין	Minyan	A quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain prayers and rituals. Rav Reuven explains the added spiritual benefit of praying with a minyan, as it combines the best parts of each individual's prayer.
שחרית	Shacharit	Morning prayer service. Part of the obligatory prayers for Jewish men.
מנחה	Mincha	Afternoon prayer service. Part of the obligatory prayers for Jewish men.
ערבית	Arvit	Evening prayer service. Part of the obligatory prayers for Jewish men.
מצוות	Mitzvot	Commandments. The divine precepts and obligations incumbent upon Jews. Rav Reuven emphasizes the importance of fulfilling mitzvot as a central aspect of teshuva for Jews, contrasting it with the Noahide Laws for non-Jews.
רשי	Rashi	Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi), a leading medieval commentator on the Torah and Talmud. Rav Reuven cites Rashi's explanation of "pleasing aroma" in relation to sacrifices, highlighting that G'd's pleasure comes from our fulfillment of His will.
יהודה	Yehuda	Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Rav Reuven uses the story of Judah's sons to illustrate the prohibition against wasting seed, even for non-Jews.
תלמיד חכם	Talmid Chacham	Torah scholar. A person learned in Jewish law and tradition. Rav Reuven emphasizes the unique qualities of Talmidei Chachamim and their deep understanding of Torah, contrasting them with those who merely accumulate knowledge without true wisdom.
ש"ס	Shas	Shas (ש"ס) is an acronym for Shisha Sedarim (שישה סדרים), meaning "six orders." It refers to the entire Talmud, which is divided into six sections or orders. Rav Reuven discusses the importance of learning Shas and its complexity, highlighting the dedication required to master it.
פוסקים	Poskim	Jewish legal decisors. Rabbis who rule on matters of Jewish law. Rav Reuven mentions consulting poskim for halachic guidance, emphasizing the importance of relying on expert opinions in matters of Jewish law.
משה רבינו	Moshe Rabbeinu	"Moses our Teacher," the greatest prophet in Jewish tradition. Rav Reuven uses Moshe's experience on Mount Sinai, learning and forgetting the Torah repeatedly, to illustrate the importance of toil and effort in Torah study.
תורה שבעל פה	Torah Shebaal Peh	The Oral Torah. The body of Jewish law and tradition transmitted orally alongside the written Torah. Believed to have been given to Moses at Mount Sinai along with the Written Torah. Rav Reuven mentions the Oral Torah in the context of Adam keeping Shabbat and the transmission of Jewish tradition across generations.
גן עדן	Gan Eden	Paradise or the Garden of Eden. The ultimate reward for a life of righteousness and teshuva.
גיהנום	Gehennom	Hell. A place of spiritual purification or punishment in the afterlife. Rav Reuven mentions Gehennom as a consequence of unrepentant sin and uses it to motivate listeners towards teshuva.
ישוע	Yeshua	Jesus. Rav Reuven discusses the Jewish rejection of Jesus and the New Testament, citing its contradictions with the Torah and its idolatrous nature.
בעל תשובה	Baal Teshuva	A newly religious Jew. Rav Reuven dedicates a significant portion of his discussion to the unique challenges and experiences of baalei teshuva in their process of teshuva.
חרטה	Charata	Remorse, regret. A crucial internal component of teshuva. Rav Reuven outlines five conditions for true charata: fear of retribution, humility, changing attire, tears and lamentation, and self-reproval.
עזיבת החטא	Azivat HaChet	Ceasing the sin. The first and most crucial action in the teshuva process.
וידוי	Viduy	Confession. Verbally acknowledging one's sins, either privately to G'd or publicly if others were involved.
קבלה על העתיד	Kabbalah al Ha'atid	Accepting upon oneself not to repeat the sin in the future. A crucial component of teshuva, involving identifying the root causes of sin and developing strategies to avoid future transgressions.

Addendum

IYH kindly partner with R Reuven shlita and his Rav the Gaon R Kachlon shlita for kiruv, kollelim and avrechim in E.Y. and spreading Torah .

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(📜‍🔥 Créé par HKBH avec Yehudi Tam comme un récipient reconnaissant, dans la miséricorde 📜‍🔥)